The Last Rational Man
Page 6
walls
For the times they are a-changin'”
“Is this aimed at the senators, or at ‘he who has stalled’?”
“I don’t know. But I don’t like the part about the battle. It seems that it is a battle in a city, a place with walls and windows.”
“May the fates will it that the city is that of our enemies!”
“Indeed. Unless they are some of our own senators, in which case the city is Rome.”
“Enough of that. So far we aren’t sure of much here. It is definitely a warning, but to who, and about what?"
“What use is a prophecy that you can’t understand? I would not say anything negative about the god’s own oracle, but one can’t help but wonder.”
“I wonder as well. I wonder if this prophecy just got to the wrong address. Maybe somewhere there is someone to whom this makes perfect sense, without all of this guesswork.”
“Somewhere and sometime.”
…
“Yes, I know that it is highly unusual to ask the entire class to be present at the same time, but I feel that that the interaction between the students is important when discussing ancient texts.
“You all knew in advance that this course would affect your personal schedules, so I will not answer any further questions about this requirement.
“Now, on to our first text. You have all read it, of course.
“A few words of background. This is a fragment of a song whose dating is unclear. It is certainly quite ancient. As you will have noticed, there are many difficult terms in the song. We must bear in mind, though, that if a copy survived thousands of years, it must have been very popular and easily understood in its time. Let’s do it a bit at a time:
“Oh the seas will split
And the ship will hit
And the sands on the shoreline will be shaking.
Then the tide will sound
And the wind will pound
And the morning will be breaking.
“404, I see you have something to say."
“Well, it relates directly to your introduction. I can’t understand the words here. I remember from a previous course why the term “Oh” is used. But “seas” has me stumped. And what kind of ship would hit? It sounds like a good way to wreck a ship. If it happened on a planet with no atmosphere, you’d lose pressure and the crew would die. And in any case you’d need a lot of repairs before you’d be able to lift off again.”
“Well, this has been a matter of some debate among the scholars. The term ‘seas’ occurs fairly often in ancient texts, and it is a term describing a large body of water. It is not clear whether these ‘seas’ are purely mythological or occur on some planet that we are not familiar with. Some have suggested that such things existed once here on Earth, but their opinion is not taken seriously.
”I suspect that we are mistaken in thinking that 'sea' refers to a body of water. How could such a thing split? Anybody have other ideas what it might be? Just from the context – what do you think?"
"It could be a force field protecting the ship. If for some reason the field failed in a TEM 01 mode, the field would split – and then the ship will be unprotected, and may get hit."
"Interesting idea. However, it does say that the ship will hit, not that it will be hit."
"Perhaps the words were used differently then. There is also the question of poetic license. The writer may have skipped the word 'be' as a means of maintaining the rhythm of the piece."
“Possibly. Possibly. And since you have come up with one decent idea, what do you make of the next three lines?"
And the sands on the shoreline will be shaking.
Then the tide will sound
And the wind will pound
"Well, we know what sand is. Shoreline is another matter. Maybe it is a word that is constructed out of two other words, 'sho' and 'reline'".
"Very good, though you may be better off dividing it into 'shore' and 'line'. But how would either of our suggestions help us understand what the song is about?"
"I'm not sure. 'Shore', according to my dictionary, means to hold up something, or to give something extra support. So 'shoreline' could be a supporting cable or life-support line. Ancient orbiters had all kinds of extra wires and stuff.
"But there is still the issue of the next verses. Tide will sound, wind will pound. What is all that supposed to mean?"
"Well, my search has shown that there was once a cleaning agent called 'Tide'. They found an empty package in decent shape in one of those time capsules. Why didn't they put anything really interesting in those capsules, anyhow?"
"So how would a cleaning agent sound?"
"Maybe it was used in an ultrasonic cleaning device. But none of this makes much sense. Even if we get the words right, the whole work still comes out as nonsense. Maybe that's a sign that we are getting the words wrong."
"OK. This is a good time to go on in the song, and try to get an overall picture of what it is about. Once we understand the context, then the words will fall into place."
"Oh the fishes will laugh
As they swim out of the path
And the seagulls they'll be smiling.
And the rocks on the sand
Will proudly stand,
The hour that the ship comes in.
"Can anybody identify the objects here? Fishes, Seagulls."
"603, I see you have been waiting to speak for some time now. Can you shed light on this song?"
"You are misreading everything. There really were seas. And ancient ships traveled in those seas. And there were swimming animals in those seas, called fishes. And flying animals too, that flew in the air. Once you understand that, things fall into place."
"603, can you zoom in a bit? Ah, thank you. I see that you are religious. You are letting your religious feelings get in the way of your scholarship. You will find it difficult to progress in your studies as long as you keep that symbolic noose around your neck.
"No serious scholar, whether historian, biologist or geologist, thinks that these seas existed. There has been no physical evidence found for these seas, nor for the mythological creatures you mentioned. Fiction and fantasy are not new inventions. The ancients made up all sorts of things, and we should try to understand what those things meant to them on a symbolic level, and not pretend that they really existed.
"These legendary fish couldn't laugh if they lived in the water, not can these 'birds' of yours smile. There is something else going on here, and difficult as it may be, we must try to understand these texts without imposing our own mythology on them."
……
"Splag?"
"Splag. It was picked up in a drifting wreck. Can't tell where the foghod is from. They are dating it now, but it must be old, since all of the memory units were wiped clean by cosmic rays."
"So how Splag?"
"Recorded with some primitive mechanical memory. Scratches in a disc. Took 5 tyrfods till they figured it out. We still can't be sure that we got the frequencies right, but we can make out the words, and it sounds like Old Earth. I am sure that it has a good 50K Betelgeuse years on it."
"Can you understand it?"
"Most of the words are known, but the sense of it – who knows? Here, I have a recording of it.:
How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, 'n' how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
How many times must a
How many times must a
How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
"Definitely Splag. Nice rhythm. I see that there is one line repeated several times. It breaks the rhythm. Why?"
"I do not know. It may be deliberate. The technicians thought it was a mechanical problem, but I doubt it."
"Ah. Splag meant to disturb. It could be. It is a question Splag, somewhat like the old Gyfris cycles. It offers an answer, like Gyfris, but not a real answer. So repeating that line could add to the feeling of Bnyrt that the Splag induces."
"Bnyrt. Yes, that is what I sense. How such a Splag manages to do that after thousands of years and many light-years of travel is beyond me."
"A gifted Husplag. Shame we only have this one work."
"Yes."
"Let us listen again."
"Hmmm."
"Hmmm"
"Bnyrt."
"Yes, Bnyrt."
•A Birthday Story
Pharaoh was uptight. He had given his servants two months notice, but he suspected that it was hopeless, that they would all fail him. The truth was that they knew the event was coming long before he had warned them, but none of them had thought ahead and come up with a solution.
They were all just a bunch of yes-men. Very handy when you wanted an approving chorus, but useless when some real creative thinking was required. The only thing that kept the empire from being overthrown by the Greeks was the undeniable fact that the enemy had even less imagination than his servants.
How did it happen? Why were his ministers and officers so incapable of original thought? There was no telling. Maybe the empire had just been around too long, and thought old, slow thoughts. More likely it was due to generations of rewarding the mediocre, and removing the few brilliant men, the ones who could come up with an original solution to the original problem.