The long man's trip on the way of knowledge

 

 

Since long time past manhood has wondered about the most inner significance of our presence on the earth.

I imagine our primitives ancestors, still wrapped in their beast’s furs, asking themselves the meaning of the stars in  the sky, some brighter , some farer, some fading away, like falling down; or  they might be thinking why the rising and the setting down of the sun, the pouring rain, the flashing of the lightening, preceding the boasting thunder; and the mystery of flying , the fascination of dreams, the secrets in the silence, the magic of a new life coming out from feminine bodies.

They started worshipping the sun, the waters, the eagle, or the great mother because of these unanswered questions. May be the first spark of this craving of knowledge has started around the fire, old men telling stories to be remembered by the young of the tribe.

The quintessence of hundred thousand years of this human research can be found now in the great religious books of humanity: the Indian Vedas and Upanishads; the Tibetan Book of Death; the Wisdom Books of the Holy Bible; or even in the mysterious books of esotericism.

You might believe or not believe in God (I personally do); and we can discuss for thousands of years  Which One is the Only God (but I know there is only One God, anyway); some can call God the Cosmic Essence of the Universe and some others can crush the Unity of God in to a Pantheon of Gods (like ancient roman and Greek did and like Indians still do); you can even keep on worshipping idles and totems (as matter of fact money and lust are not  but the modern gods of contemporary times); but if have spent your life without searching a reason to be born, then your life has passed you by uselessly.

Through  centuries and millennia men have even abused of the power of knowledge, misusing magic formulas for cheating poor people, frightening them with the shadows of God (God Himself cannot scare anyone, because He can only love); the Books themselves were instruments of power: those capable to read them on them the sacred truths could exercise a great power on those ignoring the meaning of the signs traced on their lines.

This special issue of Arspoeticamagazine deals with the matter of knowledge in the beginning of the seventeenth century.

 Angelo Ruggeri shows in a selection of works, how Milton, Giordano Bruno, Galileo Galilei, Torquato Tasso and other great minds of this century, have handle and dealt with such a sensitive subject and  why the established power counteracted their thoughts.

In the same century, but in the last part of it,  I set my novel “Four voices, only one story”, where four main writers and their friends of the Academia of Lamole, in Tuscany, are compelled to hide away from Holy Inquisition because they have decided to translate in to vulgar language the Sacred Scripture against the 1596 Pope Clemente VII’s Decree, who wanted the Holy Bible still to be published only in Latin ancient language (incomprehensible to most  people).

Still remains a great question: up to where can manhood  push his thirst of knowledge? Is it right to go beyond anyway? Is it correct to restraint the longing of manhood to break all the frontiers of knowledge? And who is titled to check scientist, poets and all the men who feel free to research the truth anyway and anywhere? Such questions are still of topical actuality and is not in the intentions of our magazine to dare to give any answers to them. I can personally only say that when I was much younger than today, my answer would be simply aimed to deny any chance of control or censorship.

But now I’m not so sure anymore.

 

Next on Arspoeticamagazine

Ancient law and new law

From Chap. 5th of Saint Mathew's Gospel

VV 21-24

 You have heard that was said

 to ancient people: “you won't kill;and he  

who  kills, will be subject to trial!”

Therefore don't kill anymore!

 But I tell you that will be sue

whoever motions against

 his brother; and who says stupid

 or crazy to him

 will burn forever

 in the Geènna!

you better leave

 on the altar your  supply and go

 to make peace with your brother!

After you can offer your donation!

Poem of Creation

Prologue

I sing  the God Almighty’s  Creation

Whereof were firstly born Adam and Eve

former seed of any human Nation

at the time  they could only   conceive

 the joyfulness with no desperation

In the Eden still so far to misgive

The challenge of that infernal snake

Who wanted to be a godlike fake !

I also sing  about the  brave men strays,

  Straight descendants of that chosen race,

who  such in boldly and daring ways

     Isr’eli  people to holy surface

  They lead of  Palestine.  Hates, loves, betray’ls,

     I don't omit, on fortune and disgrace:

  those between God and men, tribes and kingdoms ;

And  I sing  laws, exiles, wars, in my  songs.

Arduous so much however it ‘s my part,

long and full of traps my composition,

That plenty of fear I feel into my heart,

  if I dare to see myself on action,

and tremble  with my head before I start

The Old and the New Holy Narration!

My Fairy God, Firmament’s Creator

Please make me such an able narrator!

From   Genesis’ to Apocalypse’s book

please drive my hand among rhymes and accents  

 to enable me to understand and hook   

the most significant , deep sentiments

in order they can take a fairly look   

of  those seventy three, pious components!

If someone goes to Source for sweeter  taste

  surely my efforts I will not waste!

First Canto

From the Book of Genesis

I

As beginning God created the sky

 And the earth, which was shapeless and desert

And   darkness cover’d the abysses close by;

but on the waters, with divine, expert  

zeal, God established that the obscurity

had to be opened to the bright alert!

 God, seeing that it was good, called Day the light.

and the darkness, instead, was named Night. 

Then beneath the waters, the firmament

sett God, and between them, b’low, the dry land

He also set, whither at same moment,  

 to any bud and   tree He gave command

from seed, to be produc’d for nourishment

of any species, in ground, soil or sand!

After He had named sky, earth and sea

To following duty God had to begin. 

 Hereafter the lights in the sky He set

doing the moon and ‘sun for night and day,

And others signs and stars in dose correct,

for making years and seasons going away,

Because The Most High is more than Perfect

and furthermore of this I cannot say !

About this seventh stanza therefore

I will not tell you nothing anymore!

…to be continued…

Verses by Ignazio Salvatore Basile

studio.basile@tiscali.it

Why?

 

If there is someone who knows, he must talk!

To tell us why the Son

has been torn from His Mother…

And the Brother from his Brother….

 

And why guiltless children?

And timeless old men?

Why?

 

I can still see them,

on spirit and flesh

fluctuating through the chimney pots

greeting us with a compassionate smile.

 

I, still hear barks and voices

assembling,

frightening,

dispersing,

chopping off bonds of affection:

we won't see them anymore.

 

I feel

the shame to be a man!

And the fear to be alive and to love!

 

But why

if even Jesus Christ,

from the Cross,

had already forgiven us!

Why?

Please , can somebody tell me why?

 

Please let talk those who can; let talk those who want it!

And you that Know about, please talk

 

I promise I will do it

For not to forget.

In Cagliari, January the 26/27 2005

When scientist must shout

The overwhelming consensus among climate scientists is that human-caused climate change is happening. Yet a fringe minority of our populace clings to an irrational rejection of well-estabilished science. This virulent strain of anti-science infects the halls of Congress, the pages of leading  newpapers  and what we see in TV , leading to the appearance of a debate where none should exist.

In fact, there is broad agreement among climate scientists not only that climate change is real, (a survey and a review of the scientific literature published say about 97 percent agree) but that we must respond to the dangers of a warming planet. If one is looking for real differences among mainstream scientists, they can be found on two fronts: the precise implications of those higher temperatures, and which technologies and policies offer the best solution to reducing, on a global scale, the emission of greenhouse gases.

For example, should we go full-bore on nuclear power? Invest in and deploy renewable Energy – wind, solar and geothermal – on a huge scale? Price carbon emissions through cap-and-trade legislation or by imposing a carbon tax? Until the public fully understands the danger of our present trajectory, those debate are likely to continue to founder.

This is where scientists come in. In my view, it is no longer acceptable for scientists to remain on the sidelines. I had no choice but to enter the fray. I was hounded by elected officials, threatened with violence and more, after a single study I co-wrote a decade and a half ago found that the Northern Hemisphere’s average warmth had no precedent in at least the past 1,000 years. Back in 2003, when asked in a Senate hearing to comment on a metter of policy, I risponded that “I am not a specialist in public policy” And it would not “be useful for me to testify on that.” It is not an uncommon view among scientists that we potentially compromise our objectivity if we choose to wade into policy matters or the societal implications of our work. But there is nothing inappropriate about drawing on our scientific knowledge to speak out about the very real implications of our research.

If scientists choose not to engage in the public debate, we leave a vacuum that will be filled by those whose agenda is one of short-term self-in-terest. In fact, it would be an abrogation of our responsibility to society if we remained quiet in the face of such a grave threat.

How will history judge us if we watch the threat unfold before our eyes, but fail to comunicate the urgency of acting to avert potential disaster? How would I explain to the future children of my 8-year-old daughter that their grandfather saw the threat, but didn’t speak up in time?

Michael E. Mann from International NYT
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/opinion/sunday/if-you-see-something-say-something.html?_r=0
If you want to know more about Distinguish Professor Michael E. Mann and about the subject please go to the link below

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/michael-mann-climate-change-deniers-must-stop-distorting-150312836.html?.tsrc=Yahoo

You can also found an italian translation by Angelo Ruggeri in the blog: http//albixpoeti.blog.tiscali.it

Dante's Ulysses

 –  Inferno Canto XXVI-

“When I left Circe who more than a year

   retained me over there close to Gaeta

long before Aeneas came  there

 giving the place that name,

   not fondness for my son, nor pity

on my old father, nor Penelope`s claim

to the joys of conjugal love,

   could overcome  in my mind the lust

 to get  experienced of  the whole world

and  all  human faults and virtues,

   and  I turned into the large and open sea

with just one  ship and only those few comrades

who  did not desert me. 

   I saw  both shores as far as Morocco

 and as far as Spain and I saw Sardinia

and the other islands  washed by that sea.

  I and my  comrades were old  and worn

when we sailed  into the narrow pass

where Hercules rose his columns

  warning all men not to go further,

already I had left Ceuta on the left,

Seville now sank behind me on the right.

  “Comrades,” I said, “who through a hundred thousand

perils have reached the West, in the short time

we have still left of our lives

   let us   not deny  ourselves  to experience

 the uninhabited world  following the course

of the sun where it set.

   Consider your origin! You were not born

to live your lives like brutes,

but to  follow the path of virtue and knowledge!”

   With this brief exhortation I made my men

so eager for the voyage I could hardly

have held them back if I changed my mind,

   and turning our stern toward morning,

we bore southwest out of the  known world ,

making wings of our oars for our fool`s flight.

   The night  showed already   all the constellations

 of the other hemisphere and our pole

 had so declined that it did not rise out of its ocean bed.

    Five times  the  moon’s face

 had brightened  and as many time  waned

since we had started our voyage

   when   a mountain appeared to us 

so far that it  looked dark,  a peak so tall

I doubted any man had seen the like.

   We cheered  and  soon we cried

because  a whirl broke hard

upon our ship from the new land:

   three times it turned over and over the ship

 in the wave ,  at fourth the poop rose

 and the bow went down, as Somebody wished

      till the sea closed over us.”

English Translation by Angelo Ruggeri

Ulysses in the time

Ulysses is may be the best known myth of Ancient Greece. His personality has fascinated all the great writers all over the times  in the western culture from Dante to Joyce.

His original characters are depicted in the Homer's epic poems Iliad and Odyssey.

In the first, though the central role is played by monolithic epic warriors like Achilles, Agamemnon and Menelaus, emerges his cunning and his courage, jointly with his prudence and wisdom.

 In the second, where he plays an absolutely main role, hits mostly his curiosity, his bravery and craving of knowledge but also his  misfortunes and disgraces (po’lymetis and po’lytlas are the two Greek  words that connote and mark his character soon in the incipit of Homer's late masterpiece).

Ulysses, with his anxiety of knowledge, sometimes even against the Greek’s gods will, reminds in someway to the biblical account of Adam and Eve, who tasted against the God’s prohibition the fruit of the tree of knowledge.

We cannot be sure that Homer (or better the more ancient traditions that the classic fonts assign conventionally to his collection) was influenced by the direct vision of the biblical reports; but we can neither exclude it utterly, so mysterious and intricate are the contaminations between different cultures, all over the human history.

But in the Ulysses of Dante we can notice that jointing with the Greek-roman tradition, the new Jewish-Christian vision prevails on the eldest basic  characters: in the XXVI Canto of Dante’s Comedy, the immortal Greek hero doesn’t follow the knowledge at any rate, but his intentions are moved for thirst of “virtues and knowledge”. That’s what we read in the Ulysses prolusion to his mates “You were not born for living like brutes/ but for following virtues and knowledge”.

As matter of fact Dante puts his Ulysses with the cheating advisers (jointly with Diomedes) and not with the Angels rebelled against God (though we must observe that they are nevertheless very close each other, in the bottom of the horrible hell).

In other words we can say that modern western culture accepts the Dante’s vision of the Inferno’s Ulysses.

The rebellion against God is therefore reserved to Adam and Eve and to the Angels who fought against God for supremacy; Ulysses is the positive hero whose anxiety of knowledge is to be framed in the quest of God; or at least that’s the positive idea that western culture accepts unanimously now days.

This perspective of Ulysses‘ myth is also accepted by the graduated poet, the English Alfred Tennyson.

Totally opposite is instead the vision given by Irish writer James Joyce in his controversial novel Ulysses.

Ulysses chronicles the passage of Leopold Bloom through Dublin during an ordinary day, 16 June 1904 (conventionally the day Joyce's married  his  wife, Nora Barnacle).

The  novel establishes a series of parallels between its characters and events and those of the poem (Leopold Bloom corresponds  to Ulysses, Molly Bloom to Penelope, and Stephen Dedalus to Telemachus).

Ulysses  is divided into eighteen episodes. Since publication, the book has been a highly regarded novel in the Modernist pantheon.

In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Ulysses first on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Joyce fans worldwide now celebrate 16 June as Bloomsday.

It's useful to describe now the equivalence between the epic's characters and the main  subjects in the modern  Joyce's Ulysses. As everyone knows the three main characters in the Irish novel are Bloom, his wife Molly and Stephen Dedalus (a sort of autobiographic profile, already featuring in a previous author's novel as The portrait of an artist as a young man). The story establishes a series of parallels between its characters and events and those of the Homeric's poem:  Leopold Bloom corresponds to Odysseus, Molly Bloom to Penelope, and Stephen Dedalus to Telemachus.

It could  have  been very  hard to find a real coincidence in the two stories (the Homeric and the Joycean) if Joyce himself had not given a precise, peculiar imprint in that direction. As matter of fact James Joyce divided his novel into 18 different episodes, each one reminding the Homeric's Ulysses events. But while the Homeric hero lives those events through a ten years journey all over the mediterranean basin, Bloom, Molly and Stephen are shown to the reader featuring all over a single day in Dublin.

We cannot correctly understand the Joyce's work, if we don't sight it in the right  frame of the  cultural background of the Joycean's times.

The Irish writer lives and creates in the same period of Picasso decomposing  reality into the cubism painting technique. In the same time that Dadaism cries out its anti-war politics through a rejection against the war and the bourgeois way of thinking and behaving both in its  political and colonialist approaches.

May be right title for the Joyce's opus could be "The hidden side of the Homeric  hero Ulysses" also considering the probable freudian influence on the literature and arts in the same Joyce's epoch.

In fact the Ulysses' stream-of-consciousness technique, make me think that Freud’s  concepts of the conscious, primary process and dreams can help illuminate Joyce's characters.

As matter of fact, in the first two decades of the XX century, ‘the stream of consciousness’ writing  technique finds several followers, such as Marcel Proust in France and Italo Svevo in Italy (besides Joyce himself).

The great, innovative  discovery of these  three novelists, has been to  turn fiction from the external to internal reality.

Of course you might like or not Joyce’s novel (its reading being so difficult and hard, though joyful and agreeable in certain pages, where humor and nonsense prevail on the apparent leisure of the full contest),  and so,  still prefer the myth as Homer has engraved it in his unforgettable masterpiece, but Joyce’s Ulysses is already like a shadow who will follow forever the Greek myth of Odysseus.