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Muses Discussion Thread [Nov 8th: Melpomene]

AvatarNovice Priest Karnonnos2 min to read

As listed on the Announcement of the Muses Rituals, here as a counterpart to what we do on Agora, I will provide an excerpt each day for forum members to speak about if they wish, so they can engage with it.

Today is Mnemosyne's Ritual. @Astrid [NG] provided something related to the concept of memory and Mnemosyne, a clip from a recent sci-fi film, "Arrival" (2016):

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CONTEXT: The character is called Louise Banks. She lives during a time when alien spacecraft all come around Earth, causing mass panic. She is tasked by the government to research the language of aliens called 'cephalopods'. Studying it causes her to have psychic visions and flashbacks of her dying daughter, along with the future.

Louise discovers the aliens process time and know fate differently to humanity, and that knowing their language creates side effects; her understanding of fate through learning their language and visions has repercussions for her as a human being. On the other hand, her knowing their language technically saves humanity from complete disaster and tearing each other apart.

Here are some questions for discussion. You can answer just one if you want:

  • What does the clip make you feel?

  • How do you think it relates to memory?

  • How do you think the themes relate to fate?

  • What is interesting about the imagery (what you can see in the clip)?

  • What would happen if humanity really did have knowledge like this?

  • How does this relate to Mnemosyne, the Ritual and the Orphic Tablets?

Finally:

  • Have you ever had false memories?

  • What's an important memory to you? [do not have to be overly specific or revealing]

  • What do you think is most important to memorize?

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#1

The visualization of being in that white place and trying to feel what is happening. I have never felt so strongly from any other movie clip, but this perfectly reminds me of how it feels to try to look with my intuition. When I was younger, as I would try to use intuition to look into my past lives and try to look into my future.

But also reminds of something I do not think about much of being a very young child in school. Any time it would be mentioned something like what is your favorite number or what is your favorite color, I would never have some basic answer like the other children as if they are guessing or just picking anything randomly. I would always try my hardest to use my intuition, to look through into my mind with my psychic vision and try to pull from psychic knowledge outside of myself to see what is actually the correct answer. I decided numbers like 9, 36, 27, and 97 not as a number by itself but as the combination of 9 and 7. I felt all of these very strongly. These are not numbers related to dates in my life or anything like that, and at that age I did not even know the interesting things mathematically about these numbers like 9 is 3^2 or 36 is 9x4 or 27 is 3^3. I only knew addition and subraction then. I did not know why 9 or 7 was important. But I knew that it was true and there was something energetically powerful about these numbers because when looking with psychic sense into my intuition, I could feel it.

Around the same age, I was allowed to decide what color to paint my bedroom. I did not choose my favorite color because my favorite color is black and they said that is not allowed because they couldn't paint over it in the future. So again I looked through my mind with psychic vision into my intuition. I focused very hard. And I chose mostly green and with also some red. Red was my 2nd favorite color, and green is fine but I would not call it one of my favorites at that age. When I looked into my intuition with strong focus, I saw these electric lights like a neon sign or flashes of lightning. And what I saw was mostly this green shade, and also some red. I knew it was important. At that age I did not know. But in the future, what I feel as the strongest planetary forces within my soul is Venus energy extremely strongly, and also some Mars but not nearly as much. And these colors that my intuition showed me from the future and that I chose were the same as representations of these planetary energies that I did not know about at that age.

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#2

Thank you NP Karnonnos and NG Astrid!

This clip feels so mysterious and alien, you don't know what to expect but we go into it, but knowing the Linguistics professor (Louise) has built a rapport with the extraterrestrial species (Heptapods) and learned to communicate with them and that's how we find out that they need help from humanity in the future... She averts a global conflict because their translated term for "tool" was misinterpreted for "weapon", and ultimately they help her unite humanity.

Her child isn't born yet, but she embraces fate, knowing the heartbreak and joy that lie ahead and chooses to walk that path anyway, accepting time as an interconnected circle...

This is such a profoundly beautiful film and I find it so fitting for learning about memory ❤️

Even the opening monologue of the film has memory in the second line:

“I used to think this was the beginning of your story. Memory is a strange thing. It doesn't work like I thought it did. We are so bound by time, by its order.”

This comes as she reflects on her previous human understanding before learning the Heptapod's language, the learning which changes her, it truly strikes a chord in me 🙏

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#3

I had a lot of false memories up until I was 22/23 years old. Most of them are now forgotten from my brain.

Icarus laughed as he fell. To fall means to have soared.

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#4

I also have "phonetic memory" that relates to the goetic names which is why I connected to them so deeply and passionately. I used to vouch for the goetia so hard and at some point I tried to relate people to it but I was unsuccessful.

Icarus laughed as he fell. To fall means to have soared.

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#5

Thank you for this exercise, NP Karnonnos!

This movie came to mind for me about memory very blatantly, it's about memory and how language is central as a tool or 'weapon' (which the heptapods later mistakingly (?) refer to language as in the film).

Dr Louise Banks is a linguist, one of the best that the government works with because she understands the implications that culture or other nuances may have for the entirety of an effort at communication. When the heptapods arrive on earth she is tasked with deciphering their language, which in the visual representation form I found out are called Logograms, which is used in some writing systems like the English ampersand (&), Ancient Sumerian cuneiform, Egyptian Hieroglyphs, and Chinese (Hanzi):

Logograms are single written characters, symbols, or signs that represent a whole word or a meaningful unit of language (morpheme), rather than a sound.

Their writing is visually very circular which corresponds to their circular experience of time. This turns out to be the ""weapon"" which they hoped to share with humanity, but the use of this mistranslated word causes a lot of confusion and apprehension with other world leaders. By teaching Dr Banks this language, despite all her fear and disorientation, she begins to experience time in the way that they do, fundamentally transforming how her brain processes time. Non-linear, past-future-present all happening simultaneously. There are theories of language which also suggest that our understanding of the world/experience of reality could change based on what we are able to perceive through the language lens we have.

We see through 'flashes into the future' (which an initial watch may have us falsely assuming are flashbacks, but technically this is all beginning to happen all at once) that she is able to prospectively change the future through her 'memories' and stops a foreign General from declaring war and launching an attack against the heptapods due to the 'weapon' misunderstanding, just in the nick of time. She recalls an event in the future where she meets the foreign General at an event and he thanks her for stopping him, saying that he doesn't know how she somehow knew the contact number to his private phone and was able to speak his wife's dying words to him. This confuses her, but she realises that it was all meant to happen, as he begins to tell her what these were, so she is now able to go back to the present and 'fulfil' the cycle based on her memory of this future event.

The scene in the clip above depicts her 'memories' of a future daughter who will someday die of an incurable disease (we see it before she is even born). Dr Banks is completely changed in her fuller understanding, it doesn't change her path. For her, all the hope, love, fear, and grief happens simultaneously and she proceeds, it is tragically worth it. A different choice could completely erase all the beautiful memories of Hannah's existence (her daughter, whose name is a palindrome, a reminder about circular time) just as much as the sad memories, and it would be easy to view her choice as futile from a limited understanding. In the book, 'Story of Your Life' , however, it is not so much out of her own free will and it carries more of a deterministic/fated view where she finds herself at peace with everything as a part of a wider 'forest' with all the trees in all the 'necessary' facets of her life all in view.

The shared clip is at a particularly disorienting point in the movie when her sense of time is beginning to adapt to the heptapod's non-linear language, as she remembers flashes of her future daughter as her memories become more cyclical. Her fear of the unknown, being in such proximity to the aliens, is not stronger than her determination to do what is right, I can't help but feel admiration for her character in this situation, she is contending with saving the whole world and the heptapods at the same time as confusingly coming to terms with re-experiencing/remembering her future grief for her daughter and also finding out about her daughter, the fate of her daughter, and her own new abilities.

I think the question of what would happen if humanity really had this ability/knowledge could be answered by the question Dr Banks asks of her colleague Dr Ian Donnelly, and his reflections, at the end of the movie:

Louise: If you could see your whole life from start to finish, would you change things?

Ian: Maybe I’d say what I feel more often. I… I don't know.

(He looks up at the sky)

You know, I've had my head tilted up to the stars for as long as I can remember. You know what surprised me the most? It wasn't meeting them. It was meeting you.

Louise: (Hugging him) I forgot how good it felt to be held by you.

[Her memory skips forwards through time to them being married]

Ian: You wanna make a baby?

Louise: Yes. Yeah.

This ability (to think comprehensively about time, non-linearly) highlights to me about the teachings of the reordering of the Titanic forces by Father Zeus in the myths of Prometheus, Epimetheus and Pandora, which highlights the flaws in our thinking if we maintain a limited or one dimensional view of the world. At this point of the movie, Louise and Ian have only been colleagues and Louise says she "forgot" how good it felt to be held by him although this is the first time they actually embrace, she remembers it all even as it is yet to come. This is significant because despite the couple divorcing in the future (he divorces her when Hannah is still young, for not disclosing that Hannah will pass away) and all the hard feelings that Louise is aware of which are yet to come, she will proceed with their sweet and touching love story regardless, which will also give birth to Hannah and the full cycle of her life. Her efforts will also go on to someday help the heptapods, whose own purpose in sharing these abilities with humanity, which they tell Dr Banks, is because their civilisation will come to need humanity's help in 3000 years.

In terms of memory, her own remembrance of everything all at once, through her experience of non-linearly natured time through her language comprehension, helps her to see, in totality, all the significance of her life and the events within it for what it will birth and the sacredness of all the memories she will have/has had in all her being and choices. This is a powerful way to represent the power of memory, as it reminds the average person (who is prone to self-deceit by forgetting all the complexity of what life truly is) that we oftentimes are deprived of the full picture 'forest' by fixating on the singular and incomplete tree.

"[...] ever keeping memory apart from mind-harming deception,

holding together all the mind that dwells within mortal souls,

strengthening the powerful, steadfast reasoning of mortals,

most sweet, loving wakefulness, bringing all things to remembrance,

whatever each one has entrusted as understanding within the breast,

never turning aside, awakening the mind in all [...]"

- Hymn to Mnemosyne

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#6

Question: What does the clip make you feel?

Answer: The music was a little terrifying for me, also in the end i was little scared

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#7

What do you think is most important to memorize?

Faith and the connection through which it becomes personal to you. A prayer, a teaching, a simple phrase whose meaning you have taken time to understand. Something you can return to when your circumstances make everything else difficult to hold onto.

The connection to your inner Daimon or to the Gods, an unwavering faith that helps you gather yourself and take the next step.

Thank you VT and Ritual Leads for today's discussions, all of them have been so interesting. I also want to link here NG Arcadia post about Memory in Media - Blade Runner. And mine Memory in Media - Interstellar.

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#8

Great discussion yesterday, everyone. I think a lot of the answers here are thought-provoking and show an ability to relate lower things to abstraction and higher concepts.

Today is Cleo's Ritual. Cleo is the muse of history, glory, remembrance of what is noble and celebration.

I will provide short extracts about the emperor Marcus Aurelius, one of our Personalities, a noted philosopher and follower of the Gods:

Fuit autem consuetudo Marco ut in circensium spectaculo legeret audiretque ac subscriberet, ex quo quidem saepe iocis popularibus dicitur lacessitus.

It was customary with Marcus to read, listen to, and sign documents at the circus-games; because of this habit he was openly ridiculed, it is said, by the people.

Historia Augusta, Life of Marcus Aurelius 15.1.

in theatro tu libros vel in convivio lectitabas

You used to read books either in the theatre or at a banquet.

Letter of Marcus's teacher Fronto to him, Correspondence, Ad Marcum Caesarem 4.12.5 (c. 145–147CE)

Μᾶρκος γε μὴν οὕτω τι φόνοις οὐκ ἔχαιρεν ὥστε καὶ τοὺς μονομάχους ἐν τῇ Ῥώμῃ ὥσπερ ἀθλητὰς ἀκινδύνως ἑώρα μαχομένους· σιδήριον γὰρ οὐδέποτε οὐδενὶ αὐτῶν ὀξὺ ἔδωκεν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἀμβλέσιν ὥσπερ ἐσφαιρωμένοις πάντες ἐμάχοντο.

Marcus, indeed, took so little pleasure in killing that he even watched the gladiators in Rome fighting without danger, like athletes; for he never gave any of them a sharp iron weapon, but they all fought with blunt weapons, as though fitted with rounded tips.

Cassius Dio, Roman History 72.29.3

Ὥσπερ προσίσταταί σοι τὰ ἐν τῷ ἀμφιθεάτρῳ καὶ τοῖς τοιούτοις χωρίοις ὡς ἀεὶ τὰ αὐτὰ ὁρώμενα, καὶ τὸ ὁμοειδὲς προσκορῆ τὴν θέαν ποιεῖ.

Just as the spectacles in the amphitheatre and similar places become tiresome to you, because you continually see the same things and their sameness makes the sight wearisome.

Marcus Aurelius's own words, Meditations, 6.46

What do you think it says about Marcus Aurelius that he was ready to ditch one of the easiest ways to cement popularity and transient glory as an emperor [participation in gladiatorial matters and circuses], either out of hating bloodshed or boredom at repetition?

How do these extracts make you feel?

Was the pursuit of glory to the emperor wildly different to the mobs that surrounded him, the gladiator in the arena or the actor on the stage?

How much does glory and nobility involve breaking from conventions?

How much were his beliefs futuristic for his time, and if you think he held them for good reasons, do modern people have abhorrence for the same reasons?

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Astrid [NG]

Thank you for these discussions NP Karnonnos!

I think the fact that Marcus Aurelius did not go the easy route says that he held strongly to his principles. He wouldn't sell out his philosophical ideals for popularity nor did he wish to be entertained by needless violence. His goal to rule well went above transient glory, which is seen through what he made his priorities (he was not interested in impressing others for social reasons, nor did he want to encourage mindless entertainment by validating the spectacle with a show of enthusiasm).

Reading these extracts about Marcus Aurelius' life makes me self-conscious on how someone would potentially examine the way I have lived my own life and where my own priorities were in the tangible, documentable, actions I took (versus what my intentions may have been, what did I really accomplish?). I feel more inspired to learn from him, hoping to be ethical and consciously aware about my life's impact on the world into the future (to have positive effects with what I leave behind and no significant regrets).

I believe that Marcus Aurelius' pursuit of glory was different to the average person/a gladiator/an actor. The actions he took had more weight and far-reaching impacts in the world. He believed in studying to be more ethical and in taking the time to ensure that he was making the correct decisions (this, based on the article in the Personalities section). For example, a gladiator only needed to ensure an entertaining and brute victory at any cost, while Aurelius in war would perform a civic duty to the empire, strategising and seeking help from other spiritual people of the Gods to ensure the empire's safety and success.

Glory and nobility are difficult and extraordinary attainments in a person's life so breaking from all the regular conventions is central to achieving it. Doing the same average thing can only really produce the same results. How one thinks and prioritises needs to be extraordinary, with actions to match our dedication to doing more and being smarter about it. I imagine it is mentally taxing and requires extremes of self control and governance.

I think Marcus Aurelius certainly held futuristic beliefs compared to the times he lived, since he kept himself accountable to others (like consulting the Senate when accessing the treasury) and he did not believe in excessive indulgence for himself even as an emperor. I don't think modern people necessarily have the same reasons to abhor the things Marcus Aurelius did, some people choose be 'counter culture' for the sake of it and not because they would like to truly encourage higher minded pursuits in society.

kthonex

I think the extracts speak a lot to his character. Especially how when he would be present for circus games, theaters or banquets and yet would spend his time getting work done or productively reading. It makes me think of the rare times in which I would engage in the more "popular" of "conventional" activities (like the few times I'd been to a bar or a club) and very clearly remembering how I'd wish I'd brought something more productive to do while there.

While reading these extracts, I also clearly thought of our clergy and even Lady Pythia and the thousands of books they've read, because to read at every opportune moment is how thousands of books get read.

It makes me think that nobility may not inherently require the breaking of conventions, but instead, the pursuit of nobility runs independent of their malleable standards.

Thank you for the extracts and discussion!

#9
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Thank you NP Karnonnos, for gathering these illuminating extracts for Clio's Ritual 🙏💖
Reflecting on Marcus Aurelius is always deeply moving, and I find him to be an incredibly inspirational figure - his ability to maintain absolute power while remaining fiercely committed to humility, self-reflection and inner virtue is a masterclass in what it truly means to lead.

Looking at these passages, a few thoughts come to mind regarding his relationship with the conventions of his time:

  • I think it highlights Marcus Aurelius's profound commitment to internal virtue over external validation... He recognized that the adoration of the masses is fleeting, superficial and outside of one's control. By choosing to work, read or blunt the weapons of the arena, he shows that he prioritized his duty to human rational fellowship and his own conscience over cheap political theater - that he viewed the mindless repetition of the games as a distraction from the cultivation of the soul.

  • These extracts make me feel a deep and profound sense of admiration and appreciation 🙏

  • Yes, I think their versions of glory were completely antithetical... For the mobs, the gladiator and the actors, glory was immediate, born from adrenaline, bloodlust, vanity and the roar of the crowd. For Marcus Aurelius, true glory was quiet, lasting and internal. It was found in fulfilling one's nature, acting justly, and maintaining equanimity regardless of whether anyone was watching or cheering.

  • I feel that true nobility almost always requires breaking from convention, and conventions are designed to satisfy the lowest common denominator of a society... When public custom demands the celebration of violence or mindless distraction, a noble mind must rebel to protect its integrity... Marcus Aurelius proved that true leadership means doing what's right and rational, even if it invites public mockery and misunderstanding.

  • His actions (especially the enforcing blunt weapons to prevent deaths in the arena) were incredibly futuristic - anticipating modern human rights and the ethical aversion to killing for sport. Modern society's abhorrence for bloodshed stems mostly from a generalized, empathetic view of human rights and bodily sanctity. Marcus Aurelius's aversion, while compassionate, was grounded in a specific Stoic cosmology, that he viewed bloodshed as a violation of the rational order of nature, and the games themselves as a tedious, repetitive illusion that lacked true substance or spiritual utility.

Thank you again for putting this thread together and letting us dive deeper into these philosophical discussions - I look forward to reading every insight in this thread! 🌟

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#10

Many of the members, including newer members or those who post less gave their thoughts quite profoundly above, which I am pleased with.

For Euterpe, I present the instrumental First Delphic Hymn to Apollo (dated from 138-128CE), originally credited to Athenaeus with a modern reconstruction by Petros Tabouris and Avlites (1992) based on a score found in 1893 at the Treasury of the Athenians at Delphi in Greece [this video is region blocked in some African, Asian countries]:

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  • What strikes you about the way the music is presented?

  • What's different about the choice of arrangement compared to classical and modern Western music?

  • These Hymns were designed to be used in processions to Apollo. Is the melody meant to be catchy or on the contemplative side?

  • The Ritual of the Muse Euterpe says every utterance receives its measure from silence. Is this used in the song?

Important considerations: The reconstructive value is somewhat high, because texts like CID III 1 described at least some of the instruments like the pipe and kithara to be used.

The sung versions of these Hymns, however, rely much on post-medieval styles of singing and assumptions about how they would be sung, when even singing from the 1700s is often fundamentally alien to modern ears.

The First Delphic Hymn also only provides vocal notation, unlike the Second, which is instrumental notation. This means above the vocal element is somewhat artificially transposed into being an instrumental interpretation with its own creative elements for the 1992 Avlites version.

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Here is a pared down version with the melody strictly used with the kithara. If you could imagine parts of the above being sung, how distinct do you think it would sound?

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Malpanatwux

To me, the first piece sounds definitively ancient, like something that bears its age evidently in each measure. I can't quite explain why it feels this way, but it FEELS very ancient. It seems very deliberately organized and more contemplative than catchy. One thing that caught my interest were the random points of silence in the song. The same tempo followed after the first silence, but after the second one, the tempo completely changed.

These silences are very interesting to me, because there is no apparent bridge to them. The first silence was followed by no change in tempo, whereas the second silence was followed by an increase. It feels like they serve as periods of deeper contemplation before the hymn carries on. In the grand ritual of Zeus, the single minute of silence is one of deepest actions of fellowship within the ritual. Given the piece's contemplative energy, I think that these periods of silence enhance the deeper purpose of the music itself - the silence giving measure to the utterance.

I'd love to hear the vocal aspects of both of these pieces. The mystery of this has me intrigued. Given how different the First Delphic Hymn to Apollo sounds in comparison to most modern music, the vocals were likely just as unique. Perhaps even unlike anything heard of to this day.

Thank you for these discussion opportunities, NP Karnonnos! I look forward to more.

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Astrid [NG]

What strikes me is the pacing, that it goes up in intensity before the end while the beginning is more contemplative, almost like an induction which draws your focus in gently but firmly. The arrangement feels more organic and acoustic than classical and modern music, which I don't think is meant to be catchy, it's more following along a 'singular' line of sound which rises and rises is more appropriate for its purpose in religious processions (as opposed to something designed to generate a particular beat to be followed along with). I believe that 'every utterance receives its measure from silence' is reflected in this song because of the timing which includes some pauses in the melody. Imagining the inclusion of a voice singing would make it sound more primordial/ancient in a way, I believe.

#11

In honor of today's Thalia Ritual, I would like to briefly touch on comedy.

Among all the genres, I would say comedy is perhaps the most subjective. In a tragedy, most will be able to identify where the tragedy is. On the other hand, a joke may leave one person in stitches and leave another person entirely unmoved.

With this in mind, comedy is an extremely hard genre to offer recommendations in. Even going back over a thousand years, the genre was already saturated with the crass. Not to say these things cannot be funny, I myself am hardly a blank slate, but the point remains.

Let's take film. A few of the contemporary films I personally like are movies like Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, as I enjoy well-made genre satires. Could I say these movies offer anything particularly deep? Not especially. Comedy can often be a unique genre in that its goal can be considered accomplished so long as it makes you laugh.

So, instead, I would like to go back a few decades and offer what I would find to be a tasteful recommendation: the 1967 French film Playtime by Jacques Tati.

The film follows almost no traditional plot, instead following bumbling Monsieur Hulot and a group of American tourists as they navigate a sterile, futuristic, glass-and-steel Paris over the course of a single day and night.

Why I think this film is an especially remarkable comedy is the amount of work that went into it. The film's humor often relies on you paying attention. There are jokes in the foreground, background and peripheral parts of the frame. You can watch the same scene several times and discover things you missed. The camera often holds a wide shot rather than cutting between characters. This allows the viewer to decide where to look and discover the humour independently. The framing itself becomes part of the comedy. It doesn't constantly direct your attention towards the punchline. Instead, it trusts you to observe, explore and figure out what's funny. Two people watching the same scene might come away remembering completely different jokes.

In a sense, this is a comedy movie which makes its audience actually participate in its viewing. Why this is especially remarkable is that this ties into what the movie is effectively about. The first half of the film features a rigid world of right angles, where people move like robots in straight lines through labyrinthine corporate cubicles and sterile corridors. By the movie's climax, you see this isolation between people fall away. Humanity is embraced as chaotic, but soft, warm and communal. It's a testament to the human spirit. No matter how drab, grey and rigid certain structures become, humanity will always spill over and re-establish its colors. Think of the dreary medieval world and its stifling rules, contrast to the arriving beauty of the Renaissance and the flourishing of human liberty.

As a final note on comedy itself, the religions of the Yehubor have prided themselves on being utterly humorless. This should never be the way of the Zevist. When times are at their darkest, you'll often find the last thing that drives the darkness back is being able to laugh at it. For many throughout time, it was their final defiance. I would say the Greeks best of all knew that the one thing the tyrant feared most, was being made a mockery of.

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#12

Today we look at Thalia and her realm of comedy, growth and the agrarian arts.

Here is an excerpt of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.

CONTEXT: Beatrice is a noblewoman of independent mind and sharp wit whose household has long hosted Benedick, a warrior and playboy who seemingly appeals to every woman except her. She despises him and on encountering him back from war, they exchange insults. Benedick, for his part, refuses to settle down, only engaging in transient sexual relationships with women, and finding marriage a nightmare. Ironically, by the end of the play, the two end up together.

BEATRICE  I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior
Benedick, nobody marks you.
BENEDICK  What, my dear Lady Disdain! Are you yet
living?
BEATRICE  Is it possible disdain should die while she
hath such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick?
Courtesy itself must convert to disdain if you come
in her presence.
BENEDICK  Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain
I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted; and
I would I could find in my heart that I had not a
hard heart, for truly I love none.
BEATRICE  A dear happiness to women. They would
else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I
thank God and my cold blood I am of your humor
for that. I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow
than a man swear he loves me.
BENEDICK  God keep your Ladyship still in that mind,
so some gentleman or other shall ’scape a predestinate
scratched face.
BEATRICE  Scratching could not make it worse an
’twere such a face as yours were.
BENEDICK  Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.
BEATRICE  A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of
yours.
BENEDICK  I would my horse had the speed of your
tongue and so good a continuer, but keep your
way, i’ God’s name, I have done.
BEATRICE  You always end with a jade’s trick.* I know
you of old.

Translated to modern English:

BEATRICE  I wonder why you are still talking, Signior Benedick. Nobody asked!
BENEDICK  What, my dear Lady Disdain! Are you even alive?
BEATRICE  Is it possible disdain should die while she has such food to feed herself like Signor Benedick? Courtesy herself turns into Disdain when you enter the picture.
BENEDICK  So courtesy's a turncoat. But it's certain every lady on earth loves me, except you. And I wish it was true I didn't have such a hard heart, because I do not truly love any of them.
BEATRICE  A dear happiness to women. Otherwise, they'd be troubled with a hideous suitor. I thank God and my cold blood that I am like you with that. I'd rather hear my dog bark at a crow than hear a man swear he loves me. 
BENEDICK  I hope God keeps your Ladyship forever in that mood, because any man will escape a scratched up face fated by the Gods.
BEATRICE  Scratching up your face could not make it any worse than what it is.
BENEDICK  Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.
BEATRICE  A bird from my tongue is always better than any beast from yours.
BENEDICK  I wish my horse had the speed of your tongue and its endurance was like your blabbing, but carry on in your way, in the same way I'm finished with this.
BEATRICE  You always end with a jade’s trick.* I know your old tricks.

*A very layered insult. A jade is an old horse, and the phrase meant how an old, stubborn horse refuses to do its duties, such as Benedick avoiding the argument. A jade, however, also meant a prostitute in Tudor England; Beatrice is saying he is like a worn out playboy and his love style ("you always end...") is like "finishing" too quickly to escape a customer, just like how he escapes the argument.

  • How does Shakespeare use comedy here?

  • Is the unpleasant nature of what they say a necessary prelude to growth? How many romantic works, for example, start with comedic sparring and throwing jokes or even insults at each other?

  • The ultimate punch-line here is very dependent on knowing what a jade is in that time period. But some of what Beatrice says even to a modern audience is still decipherable as being funny, such as the scratched-face line. Can comedy be an eternal language in line with Thalia's sense of growth?

Discussion elements:

  • Which comedians inspire you?

  • Do you have moments you can look back on and laugh at that enhance your emotional state?

  • In which way does the nature of joy and laughter lead to spiritual growth, and how can this be misused?

Social elements:

  • What are the limitations of comedy? Modern Western values tend to claim social comedy is only worthwhile if it "punches up" at a perceived powerful target or group that have benefitted in categories of privilege. In this case, the mockery of Beatrice as a woman constrained by the mores of her time is far more valid in comedic terms than whatever Benedick can throw back at her. The purpose of comedy in communist states also loosely followed this logic.

  • Plato warned that laughter is rooted in mocking others for a fate any human could share in and can quickly become sadistic. He warned too it is always actually easier to mock the powerful and capable for doing anything with a potential of failure, and holding off on the weak is not necessarily virtuous, because some of the weak are self-inflated, and others pretend to be weak to gain power (Philebus).

  • At the same time, Plato is also concerned about mocking the weak in a way that breaks them. He warns laughter can easily provoke and goad the lowest part of the psyche, overriding reason. Hence at the highest levels, laughter should be reduced to a minimum for Guardians and modulated to be less hostile by the state (Republic).

  • Aristotle qualified this and claimed intelligent wit in comedy is necessary to combat overly solemn boorishness and childish buffoonery (Nicomachean Ethics). He explains comedy is part of system of call and response, citing what Gorgias argues to Socrates as wisdom (Rhetoric III). Comedy can also possess structure and expose weaknesses in authorities (Poetics). He nonetheless recommends comedy participation be limited in young people until one has a serious education (Politics).

  • Nietzsche finds the modern view to be anathema. He states that even mockery of the weakest target is life-affirming, because even the weakest individuals or groups are puffed up full of complexes that contribute to their being weak and a slave-like state, and to tread on them is not a great evil, especially since humanity lacks honesty about itself. For Nietzsche, comedy can scrape and claw at the dissolutive nature of reality, not needing to have moral purpose.

  • In a riposte to Plato and other post-Socratic philosophers, he also praises the Greek Gods as being depicted as beings capable of laughter such as Zeus (Iliad Book 21), Aphrodite (whose epithet is 'laughter-loving' in the Iliad) and Thalia. Where do you stand on this?

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Anthea

Thank you very much, NP Karnonnos, for giving us this opportunity to discuss these ideas 🙏

1. How does Shakespeare use comedy here?

It seems to me that the comedy here is built primarily around verbal sparring. Beatrice and Benedick are not simply exchanging insults - each of them is trying to seize the initiative, twist the other person’s words, and deliver a sharper counterattack. What makes the scene funny, then, is not so much the content of the remarks themselves as their speed, inventiveness, and the constant turning of the other person’s words back against them.

At the same time, beneath the jokes there is already a particular attentiveness to one another: they know each other’s mannerisms, weak points, and familiar tactics far too well. Their argument therefore creates distance while simultaneously revealing a certain closeness between them. In a way, humour becomes a form of courtship long before either of them is ready to admit it.

2. Is the unpleasant nature of what they say a necessary prelude to growth?

I would not say that this kind of unpleasantness is necessarily a prerequisite for growth, but in stories like these it can certainly serve an important function. The enemies to lovers or rivals to lovers trope, together with its many variations, is quite popular today. I think part of its appeal lies precisely in the fact that the characters fall in love despite everything - and sometimes quite literally in spite of everything: circumstances, their initial dislike of one another, rivalry, and all the cutting or sarcastic remarks they exchanged along the way.

There is a certain charm, sharpness, and even depth in loving and being loved by someone who has seen you from something other than your gentlest, easiest, or most attractive side. It can create a peculiar sense of safety: this person has already seen your pride, irritation, sharpness, stubbornness; you have already “exchanged courtesies,” and yet you were still able to recognize something more in one another.

Perhaps this is why this dynamic appears so often in romantic works. It allows love to emerge not from an idealized first impression, but through gradually coming to know another person. One later example that comes to mind is Pride and Prejudice. It is not literally an enemies to lovers story, of course, but Elizabeth and Darcy’s relationship also develops through initial antipathy, sharp judgments of one another, and the gradual reconsideration of those judgments.

3. Can comedy be an eternal language in line with Thalia's sense of growth?

I find it difficult to give a definite answer here. We are all formed within particular cultural frameworks, traditions, languages, and social contexts. Even within a single group of friends, something one person finds extremely funny may not register as humour at all for someone else. Perhaps, then, what is eternal is not the individual joke itself, but certain structures of the comic and our ability to laugh at recognizable human weaknesses, contradictions, and absurdities. If we connect this with Thalia and the idea of growth, comedy can help us acquire a certain distance from ourselves. It allows us to see our own pride, vanity, excessive seriousness, or inconsistency from the outside - and sometimes the ability to laugh at these things is precisely what makes further change easier.

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When it comes to comedians, I probably cannot name anyone in particular. But I can think of a few films in this genre that I especially enjoyed at one time: Green Book and The Intouchables. They are comedy-dramas, and what especially appealed to me was the contrast between their central characters. Usually, one is composed, serious, emotionally restrained, often coming from a more privileged or formal social environment and carrying some kind of tragedy or inner heaviness, while the other is almost his complete emotional opposite. As the story develops, they begin to influence one another, and through that interaction they gradually change as characters. I will not spoil anything, just in case someone has not seen them yet :)

As for moments from the past that I can now laugh about, I have certainly had those. And even if I no longer literally laugh when remembering them, I can at least smile and think, “Well, it happened; the lessons were learned - time to move on.” To me, this is one of the important possibilities of laughter: it can be cleansing, allow us to look at ourselves from a slight distance, release us from unnecessary heaviness, and in some sense sober us. But it is a very different matter when laughter turns into a defense mechanism through which a person avoids confronting something painful or uncomfortable. In that case, rather than liberating us, it can contribute to the formation of new inner blocks and the strengthening of old ones.

As for the limits of comedy, I think reducing the issue entirely to the principle of “punching up” or “punching down” is too simplistic. The social position of the person or group being mocked does not by itself determine either the moral quality of the joke or its artistic value. Context, intention, proportion, what exactly is being mocked, and what laughter turns the other person into within our perception all matter. Comedy can expose vanity, pretension, hypocrisy, and absurdity in both the powerful and the weak. In this sense, I agree with Aristotle that wit can counter excessive solemnity. At the same time, Plato’s caution is understandable: laughter can easily turn from recognizing absurdity into taking pleasure in another person’s humiliation. For me, this is an important boundary.

I would therefore neither demand that comedy always serve a moral or social purpose nor free it entirely from responsibility. Laughter is not inherently base or elevated; much depends on what it serves and awakens in us. This is also why I find the idea of Divine laughter compelling. If the Gods can laugh, then laughter itself cannot be opposed to the sacred. At its best, it can restore a sense of proportion, deflate the ego, and help us bear human imperfection more lightly - provided it remains governed by reason and measure rather than cruelty or contempt.

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Astrid [NG]

Shakespeare uses comedy like innuendo and mockery as a vehicle to examine absurd everyday romantic human interactions. I think many romantic works, like Pride and Prejudice, have an element of teasing the other in order to provoke a reaction from the other person, which can be a roundabout way to indicate that you are interested in speaking to them and what they have to say to you. Clashing to this extent can elicit very strong responses and is an excuse to be in the other's company and have some reciprocity without directly revealing tenderness.

In Pride and Prejudice the couple's back-and-forth clashes help the other realise and change their own faults by the end (Elizabeth's prejudice and Mr Darcy's pride). We realise that all the friction was necessary for them to find a way they could be together happily despite their differences and first impressions.

I think part of what could make the comedic value of what Beatrice says eternal is the irony of the attitude she has as a noblewoman delivering that line, and that we can laugh at ridiculous human behaviour throughout time being something so constant and recognisable even if it means learning more about the context first.

I am probably most inspired by comedians from my childhood that bring me glee, like Rowan Atkinson, Jim Carrey, John Cleese, Adam Sandler and Robin Williams because of the nostalgic memories tied to their skits and performances when bonding with my family and friends.

Moments that make me reminisce and chuckle to myself are usually times that were spent with people whose sense of humour I get along with well and the reminders of inside jokes that we have together. It can also include things that happened which may have not been funny at the time but looking back on them they are now.

Joy and laughter are able to help us have a more optimistic mindset which for me facilitates spiritual endeavours, since I want to better myself and the world around me. It helps me bond with others and feel more creative. Having fun can benefit the soul (the Svadhisthana chakra particularly) when done in a healthy way and within good limits. I think it also carries the risk of not taking things with the serious gravity it needs if it is in excess, as some things like our overall advancement and approaching the Divine are very sacred and should be lead with reverence, in a more centred way that aligns with Eudaimonia (which is more than pleasurable things/the feelings of joy and happiness, it includes virtue).

I don't think comedy can be used effectively to enforce people to think the same way or to singlehandedly solve issues of an unequal society, or social issues in general. People who may think differently likely won't be listening nor heed the message of the jokes if the humour isn't in their taste. Satirical comedy can help us look at ourselves more, recognise some issues more plainly and open a line of dialogue.

On Nietzsche's riposte: Having an overly strict approach to the spiritual and to life has quite severe downsides. It can be very stifling for creative flow, imagination, free thought, problem-solving and self-analysis/our development as beings. I believe seeing the Divine as also capable of laughter lets us understand creation and growth, but should be complemented by an understanding of the full picture of sacredness which we can uncover through practicing and studying the actual path to the Gods.

#15

We have reached more or less the middle of the Schedule. Everyone is doing excellently so far.

Today is Melpomene and her realm of tragedy. For Agora, I will go into fiction, here something else.

In a general way, then, madness is not linked to the world and its subterranean forms, but rather to man, his weaknesses and illusions…There is no madness but which is in every man, since it is man who constitutes madness in the attachment he bears for himself and the illusions he entertains…In this delusive attachment to himself, man generates his madness like a mirage.

...

Modern man no longer communicates with the madman ... There is no common language, or rather, it no longer exists; the constitution of madness as mental illness, at the end of the eighteenth century, bears witness to a rupture in a dialogue, gives the separation as already enacted, and expels from the memory all those imperfect words, of no fixed syntax, spoken falteringly, in which the exchange, between madness and reason, was carried out

Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization (1961)

The work Madness and Civilization is an interrogation into how the concept of madness has been viewed through the centuries, ending with pathologization and the erection of great institutions in the late 18th century when madness began to be viewed as belonging to pathology: of mental illness, as physiognomy, as heritable, as the enemy of reason. I do not agree much with Foucault on many matters, but this work is interesting in what it attempts to interpret.

The analysis Foucault makes in the first paragraph is a discussion of the middle Renaissance view of madness as something tragic that originates in self-deception and illusions about the self, cf. Erasmus and other authors who had studied the Classics and medicine of the ancient world, which later paved the way for the Enlightenment idea of madness being unreason and an enemy to precise reason.

Foucault contrasts this with earlier Renaissance works that posit madness as mysterious and beyond human comprehension, engaging in a dialogue with what is sane, like the Ship of Fools or Hieronymus Bosch, or the often positive depictions of madness in medieval Christianity due to its adjacency to Christian asceticism, the praise in the Bible for feeble-minded, and Yehuboric 'cure'.

Regardless, I found the first paragraph interesting in terms of what it seems to get at with both tragedy and Zevism. The world exists regardless of man's madness or tragedy. The birds still sing, the Sun still rises. The presence of cruelty or tragedy means a lot more to each man's fate than it does 'to the world'. Zevism instead posits that until one achieves access to the divine, one is walking through a mirage that is perhaps necessarily tragic, a chariot being driven by wild horses.

I question the last paragraph and disagree with Foucault, even when the book was written, but in 2026 it seems to hold even further untrue; the common language is the saturation of mental illness and therapy ideology into modern life. I do not think the thread is cut at all; rather modern society almost seems like a monitored sanatorium in some ways, both for good and for bad.

The level of madness being generated and its mirage-like nature reminds me somewhat of what is being spoken about in one of the High Priest's latest posts. If pretense upon conflicting pretense are being built up in Western society, the only conclusion is tragic.

  1. What do you think about this extract?

  2. Foucault as an anarchist of libertarian bent attempted to use these works to advocate for far less strict routines and supervisions of some of the mentally ill than what had existed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Would you consider this a humane idea or tragic failure?

  3. In tragedy, is dismissal of warning by 'the mad' or the outcast a common theme for downfall?

  4. Is tragedy always the result of contradiction?

Discussion:

  1. To what extent is man's plight tragic?

  2. How much are tragic characters mentally ill?

  3. Is the attempt to alleviate and care for what is tragic in every era a positive use of the powers of Melpomene?

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#16

Is the attempt to alleviate and care for what is tragic in every era a positive use of the powers of Melpomene?

I think that's determined by the exact means said alleviation and care is gone about. To paraphrase a popular saying, "the path to destruction is lined with good intentions." I think it's natural for many people to want to do something positive toward victims of/causes of tragedy who are either naturally sympathetic, or at the least, haven't had their sense of compassion desensitized by some scale of tragedy themselves.

But the means through which its achieved can, in and of itself, produce a tragic case of self-destruction if one lends all that they have at the cost of themselves. I think there are only a few cases where this can be done justifiably, and even then the context of that hypothetical would most likely be hyper-specific. Years ago, I remember reading a situation (it was posted online, but it had a cathartic-confession quality to it that makes me believe it was real) about a family who, alongside a normal healthy kid, had a younger child with a congenital brain defect that rendered him bound in an at-home hospital bed, with an unchanging vacant expression, capable only of breathing, eating puree through a tube and defecating, which his parents monitored and cared for 24/7.

The stress wore down terribly on the parents of course, and the elder brother inevitably felt neglected and borderline unloved, what with his parents never being as present as they would otherwise be for him. Stress, depression and I believe alcoholism all mixed together in a collective downward spiral with their bed-bound child as the anchor. Eventually, a breaking point was hit and the kid was submitted to a far-away facility dedicated to caring for these rare types of cases. The situation was hard and sad all around, but I understand and agree with why they did it. After all, they tried their best to balance life with the card of fate they'd been dealt, and in the face of how it was costing the whole family their lives and their older child his future, they made a decision I think would require yehuboric moral-arrogance to shame them to their face for.

Leading me back to what I opened this reply with. The means through which "alleviation and care for what is tragic" determines if Melpomene's powers are implemented justly. Say the parents had gone through with keeping their bed-bound kid. From what I recall of the post, they were at a point of a corroding marriage, constant stress, depression numbed with alcoholism, and another child with a once-normal life now living with physically present but emotionally absent parents and a deep, deep resentment for a sibling that, a few centuries earlier, may not have lived beyond a few hours after birth. What would they say is their achievement? "At least we never sent him somewhere staffed by professionals trained to observe and care for him in a facility packed with machines and equipment designed for his condition!" To me, that would result in a tragedy that was initially localized to a human born with a severe disability, but then have expanded to the tragedy of a whole family being changed for the worse and an innocent child's future blunted (at best) from what it could otherwise have been.

A shorter example would be a Zevist who spends an inordinate amount of their time trying to convince a single, particularly stubborn christian or muslim of the light of the Gods rather than spending that same amount of time evolving themselves and reaching wider audiences who would be more receptive to the truth. Even if they succeeded, it came at the cost of both themselves and all the other people they could have potentially reached, which could have included the hypothetical stubborn person.

In the end, I think I'll round out what I'm saying by clarifying that the "exact means" are also relative to that which is "best" from what is available to the people in question (available in terms of resources and intellectual awareness, because technically, connecting with the Gods is always the best answer...but wasn't always available or even known).

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