Mythgard Academy: Phantases, Session 5

[00:00:18]Good evening everybody. Welcome back to the Mythgard Academy. This is session number five of our discussion of fantasties as our protagonist continues to go his rather unaccountable way. Um the protagonist of this character of this this character of this book is so strange. the uh first person narrator.

[00:00:42]Um yeah, he's not a repulsive character, but is it's really hard to get behind him in [laughter] a lot of ways. Um because, you know, often a first person narrator is kind of offered um as a sort of a standin, right? um you know like the the the narrator is telling things in you know with this sort of the immediacy of first person recollection which often for us as readers then sort of translates to kind of projection right like um when we read it you know the firsthand experiences of our narrator it brings a sort of an immediacy uh to our experience and we've talked about moments where that gets broken in really interesting ways um kind of puncturing that frame Okay. Um, and that's something that we may come back to, but um, I I just I can't help but reflect for the moment on how peculiar it is that the immediiacy like the distance distance is something that seems to me a really remarkable little motif of this book so far. Um, we saw it from the beginning. the distance between the narrator and the father. Remember the the kind of the distancing between the narrator and every other human being in the house. Recall that like the total absence of the other people who are obviously involved and that sort of thing. And I feel distance between um between us and him as well. Um, it's really just it's really hard to get behind the narrator. It's really hard to kind of join in. Um, anyway, it's uh it is interesting. [laughter] Yes, Curious Chance is quoting, "Doubtless some one man may escape and I shall be he." Right. Which like we obviously knew everything was doomed at that moment, right? Um [laughter] anyway, uh but welcome back to the Mythgard Academy. Um we'll jump back into it in just a second. One quick thing, uh that I wanted to draw your attention to things that are happening here on mythgard, sorry, blackberry.signuniversity.org.

[00:03:16]It is the beginning of our fall moot season. So, as you can see, we have eight, I think eight moots happening in the next seven months. Um, which is really fun. Actually, it's not seven months. It's five months, right? Eight moots happening in the next five months is of course exactly what's going on here. Um, our very next moot is Helcaraxam Moot, uh, August 1st in Fairbanks, Alaska. Um, and this is going to be great fun. Uh, I love the the theme of this for our first ever Alaskan moot. Um, the long winter and the unending night, endurance in Tolken's world and the north. I guess a really fun uh, very aptly chosen topic.

[00:04:13]uh for our foray into Alaska here. Um that of course is August 1st in Fairbanks, Alaska. Our first trip way up north uh for our most northerly moot. Um we have others that are coming up soon.

[00:04:29]Uh Cascade Moot, for instance, which is August 29th, so the very beginning and the very end of August. Um we're going to be in Fairbanks, Alaska, and then in Portland, Oregon. And then uh in September, Ranger Moot from the 11th through the 13th of September in Loveland, Ohio, right outside Cincinnati. Um this is our really fun outdoor moot.

[00:04:57]Yes, Ranger Mood is so much fun, Jackie.

[00:04:59]Um lots It's a It's a It's a multi-day moot. We do uh we do stuff outside. Uh it is our it is our sort of um I don't know not exactly wilderness moot but um anyway it's going to be um uh yeah outdoors outdoor stuff is always really fun there. Um and uh Calvin you to be a moot presenter you just have to have a good idea. Um, yes, Fencing Frog. This is the one. It's Ranger Moot is the one that's uh that's at the scout camp. Yeah, absolutely. Um, and my understanding is that the scout camp um in addition to being able to do stuff like archery and axe throwing and uh hikes through the woods and things like that. Um, there's also going to be like blacksmithing and stuff like that going on this year. So, um, it's, um, it's going to be really cool. And [clears throat] yes, [laughter] JJ says, "Based on past years, there's a 50% chance of the temperature being tolerable." Yeah, we've had some weather issues. Our biggest weather issue was that it was like a 100 degrees one year.

[00:06:17]Um, but we will see. [laughter] We will see. We'll see how it works this time around. Um, so those are the ones that are coming up here in the next two months. And then we get October, which is a threemoot month, but we'll come back to that later on. Um, oh yeah, Miss Ray, uh, the third of those is New England moot. Yeah, you I'm glad you'll be able to come to that. Um, but um um anyway, yes. Yeah, Stuart's fire. The camp staff certainly have understood the assignment about lighting a large bonfire every year. Um, [laughter] we have uh we hang out around the bonfire which I think can be seen from space. [laughter] It's it's uh it's it's fairly remarkable. Um [laughter] anyhow uh so I hope you can join us at one of our upcoming moots which are so much fun. All right, let us get back to uh uh when last we left our um odd protagonist.

[00:07:34]he had just begun to do some uh apparently really ill-advised things. Uh this is the last passage that we talked about. I'm just going to kind of reread it and so that we can jump from there to what comes next.

[00:07:52]But just where the path seemed to end rose a great rock quite overgrown with shrubs and creeping plants, some of them in full and splendid blossom. These almost concealed an opening in the rock into which the path appeared to lead. I entered, thirsting for the shade which it promised. What was my delight to find a rocky cell, all the angles rounded away by rich moss, and every ledge and projection crowded with lovely ferns, the variety of whose forms and groupings and shades rot in me like a poem, for such a harmony could not exist, except they all consented to some one end. A little well of the clearest water filled a mossy hollow in one corner. I drank and felt as if I knew what the elixir of life must be. Then threw myself on a mossy mound that lay like a couch along the inner end. Here I lay in a delicious revery for some time during which all lovely forms and colors and sounds seemed to use my brain as a common hall where they could come and go unbidden and unexcused. I had never imagined that such capacity for simple happiness lay in me, as was now awakened by this assembly of forms and spiritual sensations, which yet were far too vague to admit of being translated into any shape common to my own and another mind.

[00:09:16]Okay, so where is he? like Anidos, our protagonist, is this is the beginning of a little career of cluelessness, right? Um yeah, it absolutely sounds like a tomb. Um, it's um it's a a green mound that has this mossy mound like a couch along one end of it inside.

[00:09:50]Um, so it sounds like a tomb and it sounds like he's just laid himself down on the beer within the tomb maybe or maybe something else. Um, and in addition, uncoincidentally, in addition to looking like or sounding like a tomb, it also of course sounds like a an an elf bound or a barrerow, Adam, which is pretty much what elf bounds were. Um and uh now mighty Felix you are right that there is going to be some like birth imagery associated um with this. So the sort of womb tomb thing is perhaps in some ways uh at work here. Um but um yeah. Anyway, okay. So, he's in a mound which sounds like a tomb or probably a barrerow.

[00:11:06]And this is the kind of thing which was when you find an old green over mound um that an elf mound is what that was very frequently called. And there are lots of stories about passing through a passage in a rock inside an elf mound. And when you go through it, you emerge into fairyland or possibly the land of the dead or maybe both like Sir Orio does in the famous medieval poem which Tolken translated um where he passes through a passage in the rock which leads him to fairy land which is also the land of the dead. Um because he's going to reclaim his wife who sort of died or maybe she didn't. Um it's confusing.

[00:11:58]Um but um anyway, so the bllythe ignorance like he's not even he's not thinking about this at all.

[00:12:14]But I think it's pretty clear that there is a certain amount of dramatic irony being built here which is interesting in the context of a first person narrative. Right? Once again, that distancing that I was talking about, dramatic irony is all about distance. Dramatic irony, of course, is when we, the readers, see more and realize more than the characters, right?

[00:12:42]Um, when there's stuff that we get that they don't, that's dramatic irony. Um, and there seems to be a bunch of that going on here, that kind of dramatic irony. And that dramatic irony always creates distance because it isn't just that we we see things that the characters don't see. When we become aware of dramatic irony, that is the moment when we see that we see things that they don't see, right? When we become aware of that gap, when we become aware of that distance, and it's our perception of that gap, our realization that we realize things that they don't realize, that's the moment of irony. That's when the irony hits us, right? And there's there seems to me to be a bunch of that here.

[00:13:39]All of his language He drinks from the water in the mossy hollow and felt as if I knew what the elixir of life must be. He says from [snorts] inside what looks like a tomb.

[00:14:00]Here I lay in a delicious revery for some time.

[00:14:04]And we're like, okay, first of all, if you get up in less than a hundred years, you're lucky. Delicious revery indeed.

[00:14:15]Or again, like death itself.

[00:14:19]Um, but here he is totally un suspicious of any of these things.

[00:14:31]While all lovely forms and colors and sounds seemed to use my brain as a common hall where they could come and go unbidden and unexcused.

[00:14:42]So these things keep happening.

[00:14:46]Um yeah, Curious Chance is recommending strongly against letting anything use one's brain as a common hall. Yeah. No, that seems a really bad idea.

[00:15:06]His reaction, however, is I had never imagined that such capacity for simple happiness lay in me as was now awakened by this assembly of forms and spiritual sensations. Again, notice there's this he speaks of himself in this totally passive way. He's having this experience which which he's describing as completely passive like there's no suggestion in his words that he is imagining things that he is an agent you know in that process he describes himself as perfectly passive. Yes Jackie observing himself having the experience.

[00:15:51]Yes.

[00:15:53]um something is happening to him. He's not doing things and yet he seems totally unsuspicious, totally unconcerned.

[00:16:09]Simple happiness was being awakened in him by the stuff that's happening which he can't possibly explain.

[00:16:22]Okay. So anyway, so this has started off well. Let's see how we carry on. I had lame for an hour, I should suppose, though it may have been far longer.

[00:16:30]Yeah, like maybe centuries or millennia, who knows? When the harmonious tumult in my mind, having somewhat relaxed, I became aware that my eyes were fixed on a strange timeworn ba relief on the rock opposite to me. This, after some pondering, I concluded to represent Pig Malon, as he awaited the quickening of his statue. The sculptor sat more rigid than the figure to which his eyes were turned, that seemed about to step from its pedestal, and embraced the man, who waited rather than expected.

[00:17:03]"A lovely story," I said to myself. This cave now, with the bushes cut away from the entrance to let the light in, might be such a place as he would choose, withdrawn from the notice of men to set up his block of marble, and would and mold into a visible body the thought already clothed within form in the unseen hall of the sculptor's brain. And indeed, if I mistake not, I said, starting up as if a sudden ray of light arrived at that moment through a crevice in the roof and lighted up a small portion of the rock bar of vegetation.

[00:17:35]This very rock is marble, white enough and delicate enough for any statue, even if destined to become an ideal woman in the arms of the sculptor.

[00:17:50]Okay. So, like this is the part where I begin to like face palm so frequently I'm like at risk of concussing myself.

[00:17:56]So, um Okay.

[00:17:59]Lying there in his revery letting these things happen inside his brain.

[00:18:04]He notices that there's an image.

[00:18:13]There's a a mythological tableau um you know in bar relief on the rock which he recognizes as Pyon. Now um let's uh let's do a quick review. We need to understand the story of Pyon. He gives us many of the details, right? not quite enough to understand the whole story.

[00:18:47]And of course there are different versions of this story as well.

[00:18:52]But the core of the Pyonian story is that of an artist who carves uh what's his phrase there? Um an ideal woman. Yeah, that's his phrase.

[00:19:17]um who carves an ideal woman from marble and falls in love with the statue that he carves.

[00:19:38]The pig million myth is a favorite myth.

[00:19:46]It's a favorite myth for writers and poets to bring up when they are contemplating the relationship between an artist and their art.

[00:20:06]Um now as I say there's different um there's different um there's different versions of this myth.

[00:20:19]Some of them have happier endings and some have less happy endings.

[00:20:27]Um but the core element I would say the chief thing that keeps um the chief thing the the the chief thing that keeps that is sort of the recurring concept is again this question of the relationship between between artist and art.

[00:20:53]Um, a very commonly paired myth.

[00:21:07]As I recall, Avid in the Metamorphoses pairs these two.

[00:21:12]Um, Pyon and Narcissus, who falls in love with his own reflection, right? Um, now when I say that these two myths are para, I don't mean to say they're identical. They're not the same story, but they're two stories which kind of relate to each other interestingly.

[00:21:36]Um, they certainly have some similar interests, right? And one of the one of the questions that authors and poets who contemplate the pig million myth are often sort of asking is like how similar are they? Like is this a narcissist situation? When Pyon falls in love with his own art, is it himself that he's falling in love with?

[00:22:09]You could see it as again you could do the myth in a sense that's like just kind of pathetic.

[00:22:18]Um where where Pymon becomes a um a sort of sad and pitiful spectacle.

[00:22:30]Um or it could become something grand like you know what art is capable of. I mean there is a sense by the way in which the pyon myth was uh sort of unironically embraced by the modernists. this idea of like the artist whose true love lies within his art and no one else can understand his art and he's not seeking to connect with any other outside people but only to commune with his own art which is his true you know so like the only one who can understand his genius is the genius itself like that's kind of a modernist thing um so again it's not that pig million is always a a bad, you know, like a a a you know, a sad or uh wrong kind of character.

[00:23:36]Um but um but in any case, it's one of those myths about art and artists um which of which many many many many many poets and and and and writers have been very fond because they like thinking about art and artists and you know it's like this one the myth of Arachnne another favorite right of artists um and and all this sort of thing. Okay. Anyway, now um yes, a lunar woe, you are certainly correct that Pyon is a an extreme example of someone who loved too well the work of his hands. Yes. And sometimes that's the moral of the story or something quite like that. Right. Again, that's when it has a tragic turn. That's sometimes the moral of the story, right?

[00:24:39]That um you just as the story of Narcissus and it's hard because the story of Narcissus like um the adoption of narcissist as you know the name for like narcissistic personality disorder. Um, narcissism as we tend to use that term nowadays, it it's only metaphorically connected to the story to the myth of narcissist.

[00:25:17]Like if if you're thinking about narcissists, the myth of narcissist falling in love with his own reflection and you're only thinking in terms of like narcissism in the modern sense, um it's it's that's it's a serious well I won't say a serious mislication. It's a very narrow and sort of brutal application of it. Um uh Narcissus was not a narcissist.

[00:25:46]um uh in the modern sense um at all. Anyway, just a little side note there uh if you're not familiar with the myth anyway. Okay, so [sighs] I am prepared when he sees Pic Bailey and I'm like, "Okay, all right." Um, I'm supposed to be thinking about the relationship between the artist and his art, between the painter and his painting, the sculptor and his sculpture, which is of course literally the subject of the story, the author and his tale.

[00:26:36]Um, I'm being invited to think about that.

[00:26:42]That's what that that's that is the myth about that relationship and it is a myth which in whatever version of it there is points to difficulties right if it's not actively tragic or um you know tragic in the this is what happens to you if you love too well the work of your own hands a lunar woe, right? Um that sort of sense. Um or just pitiful, ridiculous, right? Um we might weep for pig million. We might scorn Pig Meon. Again, this is the reaction that the different versions of the story might, but we might perhaps admire him, right? But it's but the relationship between the artist and his art and his own love for his not himself but his own artistic creation is at least problematic.

[00:27:55]That's no matter what version you're reading, no matter what version we're talking about, it's problematic.

[00:28:04]Um, okay. Um, I agree, Calvin. Some of them are happy endings and she comes to life.

[00:28:14]Exactly. Sometimes, but it's still problematic, [laughter] right? Like it's if it does have a happy ending, it's an unexpected happy ending.

[00:28:23]Um, so again, the the the the the fact of falling in love with your own subcreation or whatever is um uh is problematic. Okay.

[00:28:41]His reaction does not hint at the idea that he's ever even acknowledged that there is anything problematic about the big meian story. A lovely story.

[00:28:55]And then he immediately starts applying it.

[00:29:00]This cave would be a great place for a a sculptor studio. Pyon could set up right here.

[00:29:11]And indeed, this very rock I'm lying on is marble, wide enough and delicate enough for any statue, even if destined to become an ideal woman in the arms of the sculptor.

[00:29:27]Yeah, Mighty Felix, I'm not sure which version he knows. The fact that he calls it a lovely story suggests to me that he's thinking of a happy ending version.

[00:29:40]But then again, he's been so oblivious ever since he's been following this trail that led him to the, you know, to the Barrow here. Um, that it's [laughter] hard to say. It's hard to say. Um, like I can't rule out the fact that he has read one of the more problematic versions and just didn't track at all because he seems to be not tracking a lot right now.

[00:30:08]Um and curious chance I agree that she comes to life is not a guarantee of a happy ending. Yeah. Agreed. Agreed. Um okay. But apart from even apart from the fact that he is so does not seem to be considered the pyonian story in any way problematic. To me, even more concerning, weird um troublesome is the cheerfulness which with he simply paints himself into that particular picture.

[00:30:57]I am I will be just like Pig Meon.

[00:31:02]Hey, I could recreate Pig Meon right here.

[00:31:08]And it's just like, okay, maybe you think it's a happy story. Maybe, but um but it's weird. Anyway, all right, let's let's let's watch how it goes on. And first, a vague anticipation gave way to a startling sense of possibility. Then, as I proceeded, one revelation after another produced the entrancing conviction that under the crust of alabaster lay a dimly visible form in marble, but whether of man or woman I could not yet tell. So, he's scraping the moss off.

[00:31:41]I worked on as rapidly as the necessary care would permit, and when I had uncovered the whole mass, and rising from my knees, had retreated a little way, so that the effect of the hole might fall on me, I saw before me with sufficient plainness, though at the same time with considerable indistinctness, arising from the limited amount of light, the place admitted, as well as from the nature of the object itself, a block of pure alabaster enclosing the form, apparently in marble, of a reposing woman. She lay on one side with her hand under her cheek and her face towards me, but her hair had fallen partly over her face, so that I could not see the expression of the whole.

[00:32:18]What I did see appeared to me perfectly lovely, more near the face that had been born with me in my soul than anything I had seen before in nature or art.

[00:32:35]And he says that last thing without a hint of self-consciousness, like you're going to stand there in a tomblike room that has Pig Meon on the wall, to which your reaction was, "This is just like Pig Meon's workspace."

[00:33:00]And then you're gonna start talking about nature and art without even briefly stopping to think about that because of course that's one of the other major themes, major questions.

[00:33:18]Nature and art is the love of pig meian unnatural because he loves an inert thing.

[00:33:30]He loves a block of marble.

[00:33:34]the the beauty, the identity, the womanhood, the personality, the personness at all of the statue that he makes is not just connected to him. It's not just a a reflection of his own art or a product of his own art.

[00:33:56]It's artificial, literally artificial.

[00:34:00]It's an artifice imposed upon an inert block of stone. And so the question of art and nature is um again it's one of the chief like questions that is raised by the pyon myth. If you're thinking about the relationship between art and nature and where the lines lie between the two of them, Pig Million is a a a story that you and of course there are many other versions of this story. In its way, it's different. It's a different way, but in its way, the Pinocchio story is very like the big male story.

[00:34:47]Um, and the whole question of like whether Pinocchio can become a real boy or not is exactly the art versus nature question.

[00:35:01]Um, okay.

[00:35:05]Now, yeah. Okay. So, let's let's take in a couple things here now.

[00:35:17]Calvin, you point out that this woman, this female figure in the block of alabaster, which was the mossy mound that he was reposing upon. So he was just lying on top of this block of alabaster unknowing because it was covered with moss before he started uncovering the moss.

[00:35:41]um when he's uncovering it, he sees her form inside it. So, it's this block of alabaster which has a woman inside it. And so, Calvin, as you say, he's not pig.

[00:35:59]He didn't take a block of marble and carve a woman out of it and then fall in love with that madeup woman that he carved.

[00:36:10]That's not what happened there.

[00:36:16]Well, no, not exactly.

[00:36:23]Um, by the way, Adam, yes. Um, nature versus art.

[00:36:29]Um, data in Star Trek is certainly uh another contemplation of that. Yeah.

[00:36:37]Anyway. Okay.

[00:36:40]But remember what we just read. Let me go back.

[00:36:53]Remember his reaction, his application of the Pyonian story to his current situation. This cave now with the bushes cut away from the entrance to let the light in might be such a place as he would choose. withdrawn from the notice of men to set up his block of marble.

[00:37:12]Notice this now. And mold into a visible body the thought already clothed with form in the unseen hall of the sculptor's brain.

[00:37:26]Let me do that again.

[00:37:28]his block of marble and mold set up his block of marble and mold into a visible body the thought already clothed with form in the unseen hall of the sculptor's brain in other words pig according to anidos according to our narrator here pyon also is not just inventing a woman is not just taking a block of marble and carving it to look like a woman.

[00:37:58]Exactly. It's the way that he describes that is different.

[00:38:05]He talks about there is a thought already clothed with form in the unseen hall of the sculptor's brain.

[00:38:18]So the woman exists already inside the brain of the sculptor.

[00:38:28]And yeah, Calvin, she's not yet formed, but he can see her in his mind.

[00:38:38]Almost.

[00:38:40]Almost. Notice she's not formless in his mind, and he needs to give her form.

[00:38:48]The thought already clothed with form in the unseen hall of the sculptor's brain.

[00:38:56]Even her form already exists.

[00:39:01]It's like that which spiritually exists already needs to be rendered physical or visible to use his word.

[00:39:11]So the act of of of sculpting by pigon according to anidos is taking that thought clothed with form already.

[00:39:25]It's unseen yet because it's in the sculptor's brain and he's going to make it visible.

[00:39:32]But do you see the the kind of line that's being blurred here? He's not just making something up.

[00:39:43]He's clothing. The thought is already clothed with form and he's just making that form visible.

[00:39:53]It's like it is almost like saying that the woman is already there in the marble statue and Pigon instead of making her is freeing her like liberating her from the marble and his sitting and awaiting Her quickening, as he describes, awaiting the quickening of his statue is merely the final culmination of this process of [snorts] making visible, then awaiting for it to come to life and then so immediately upon he then looks at this block and says, "Hey, this is marble, white enough and delicate enough for any statue, even if destined to become an ideal woman in the arms of a sculptor.

[00:41:07]This very block could have a woman in it.

[00:41:14]Could be made into a marble woman, an ideal woman.

[00:41:19]But again not exactly made into because the origin was that thought which was already clothed in form which invites I think a doubt as to where the causality lies. Did in Anidos's version of Pyon here does Pyon make the woman or does he just discover her and set her free?

[00:41:45]Is she outside of him in some sense?

[00:41:49]or is she a creation of his own mind?

[00:41:54]The word ideal is a little bit uncertain. Again, I think at the end of that, an ideal woman, it could mean in that sense like theoretical, not real, like ideal as opposed to real, but I'm not sure. Yes, Jackie, I agree.

[00:42:18]There's a big difference between an ideal woman and the ideal woman. He's not saying right. Yes, Bricktales, that's exactly the question in the sense of perfect or as an idea. The latter I think um that I think is is the force. If we if if he said the ideal woman, Jackie, then it would sound like he was just saying like to make the perfect woman, like to design the, you know, then then we're in like Steepford Wives territory, right? Speaking of art and nature and Pig Meon. Um, Steepford Wives, another creepy version of the Pyon story, right?

[00:43:00]Um, uh, anyway. Yeah. So, uh, but sort of that it's a, you know, like an obvious twist on the P. Never mind. My Fair Lady, of course, is also another one.

[00:43:10]Yes, Arthur was referring to that one earlier. Um, yeah. Yeah. Um, lots of u lots of contemplations of this story in different uh in different forms. It's a favorite myth as I say. Um, to become an ideal woman.

[00:43:27]Um, I'm thinking almost of like um Plato as well, like ideas and forms compared to physical limited physical things.

[00:43:58]Yes. The a platonic woman. Exactly.

[00:44:02]Right. Played also famous for his caves.

[00:44:05]Yes. Truly. Um.

[00:44:08]Oh my goodness. Bricktales. I had even thought of that, but he was just drawing attention to the cave [snorts] and the light coming in from the entrance of the cave and therefore presumably casting shadows on the back wall of the cave. Holy cow. I did not think of that at all. But um in that context, the fact that all of this is happening in a cave with shadows on the back wall certainly does sound like perhaps an ideal woman we should be thinking about in platonic terms. Yeah.

[00:44:41]Belfang goes, "Yes, and he's looking at an image on the cave wall." Uh-huh.

[00:44:45]Uh-huh.

[00:44:47]Yeah.

[00:44:50]Okay. But anyway, now now let's take all this stuff and go back. What happens when he sees this block of alabaster and realizes this is a block of alabaster with a woman in it?

[00:45:02]He can't see her face.

[00:45:06]What I did see appeared to me perfectly lovely, more near the face that had been born with me in my soul than anything I had seen before in nature or art.

[00:45:26]There is a face that had been born with me in my soul.

[00:45:34]Notice the similarities between that and the thought already clothed with form in the unseen hall of the sculptor's brain with pyon.

[00:45:46]that pyon.

[00:45:52]This begins to sound like a a really romantic version. Boy, to use a dangerous word, romantic. um a really um let me just avoid that word entirely and say instead well this is a really sunny concept of the pig million myth right if that thought which already had form in the unseen halls of Pyon's brain is something like this the face that had been born with me in my soul something which is deeply deeply personal to him and yet not him.

[00:46:42]A thing that is encountered or discovered rather than made or created.

[00:46:49]And there she is in a block of alabaster like the statue used to be in a block of marble.

[00:46:58]And what does she need? She needs to um she needs to be set free, right?

[00:47:11]Um Moren says, "Sounds like his own face, too."

[00:47:20]Well, Moren, that's the big pygmy question.

[00:47:24]And that's why the pairing with the myth of narcissus is so interesting, right?

[00:47:31]Is it in fact himself that he's falling in love with?

[00:47:39]Um, numberless histories pass through my mind of change of substance from enchantment and other causes and of imprisonments such as this before me.

[00:47:54]So, he's like, "Okay, she's been imprisoned and she needs to be set free."

[00:48:00]He's no longer thinking about pig million. He's going to think about other myths instead. I thought of the prince of the enchanted city, half marble and half a man, of Ariel, of Naobi, of the sleeping beauty in the wood, of the bleeding trees, and many other histories. Even my adventure of the preceding evening with the lady of the beach tree contributed to arouse the wild hope that by some means life might be given to this form also, [snorts] and that breaking from her alabaster tomb, she might glorify my eyes with her presence. glorify my eyes with her presence. What a phrase.

[00:48:39]Four. I argued who can tell but this cave may be the home of marble. Capital M. Btails. Now we're absolutely if we weren't thinking about Plato before we have to be now, right? Maybe the home of marble. And this essential marble, that spirit of marble which present throughout makes it capable of being molded into any form. than if she should wake, but how to awake her.

[00:49:08]Yeah, Morin, he just flat out now he thinks it's a tomb. But see, but see, this is not creepy anymore. It's beautiful.

[00:49:19]It's like, you know, the casket that Sleeping Beauty is in.

[00:49:24]It's just a, you know, a magical cage from which she can be set free by him.

[00:49:33]which makes him exactly like Pyon again. Again, just like the not just the blliveness but the cheerfulness [laughter] with which he instantly adopts the role of pigon and then it plays out exactly like that or seems to. I mean, he started thinking of himself as Pyon or imagining that, you know, wouldn't it be cool if he were just like Pyon um before he even discovers that the mossy mound upon which he was reposing is a block of anything and certainly before he discovers that there's an ideal woman in it or someone who seems like an ideal woman.

[00:50:24]and he's immediately thinking of other stories.

[00:50:29]And again, notice the kind of meta reference that these stories create with Pyon. Again, Pyon is about art and nature. Pig million is about an artist believing like loving his own art and wanting his own art to cross the line, believing his own art has in some sense crossed the line whether it does or not in the course of the story between art and nature.

[00:51:14]And he's doing the same thing, bringing nature to life. Well, or art to life, making it into nature.

[00:51:24]That's what he's doing by referring, for example, again to use the same example I used before of sleeping beauty.

[00:51:33]He says, "It's just like Sleeping Beauty." Like, I know the story of Sleeping Beauty and I'm going to make Sleeping Beauty happen.

[00:51:44]that pig million all over again.

[00:51:48]And it's it's almost like he willed this whole alabaster block ideal woman situation but into being by posing as as pigonian to begin with, right?

[00:52:15]Who can tell but this cave may be the home of marble, essential marble, that spirit of marble.

[00:52:24]That is to say, the platonic idea.

[00:52:26]Essential is a platonic word.

[00:52:30]um at least in many uh English translations of Plato.

[00:52:38]Essence meaning form, idea, the spiritual concept that underlies physical things.

[00:52:48]So you have the idea of marble and that idea of marble is made manifest in physical marble. Like every chunk of marble in the world is a particular instance, a particular bodying forth of that idea, that abstract essential idea of marbleness.

[00:53:12]But none of them perfectly capture the essential marble because in Plato's philosophy, all physical things are lesser limited.

[00:53:24]Um, none of them can contain the perfect ideal of the essential thing.

[00:53:36]And so he speculates that this cave may be the home of marble.

[00:53:45]Again, going back to the other Platonic language that he was using, an ideal woman, the thought already clothed with form in the unseen hall of the sculptor's brain.

[00:54:01]The sculptor, Pyon, in his little imagination of the Pyon myth here, Pyon himself was encountering not just a real woman. It's not a question of, "Hey, is that just a statue? Is it just an inert piece of marble? Or is it a real woman?"

[00:54:22]That's not the question.

[00:54:25]With the with Plato superimposed on top of it, what it becomes is literally an ideal woman. What Pymon starts with again in Anidos's description here is not an idea of a woman but the idea of a woman.

[00:54:48]She is the essential woman clothed with form and he the artist is bodying that forth an ideal woman in the arms of the sculptor.

[00:55:10]Um he's thinking along these same lines.

[00:55:19]This cave may be the home of marble, essential marble.

[00:55:23]The spirit of marble which present throughout throughout this cave I guess um makes it capable of being molded into any form.

[00:55:37]Do you see what he's suggesting there?

[00:55:42]What does he mean? Why does he Why is he speculating? What leads him to say that this cave may be the home of essential marble?

[00:55:52]That this cave is the cave in which the Platonic ideal of marble exists.

[00:55:59]Why would he say that? answer.

[00:56:05]Because somehow in this room, in this cave, marble appears to be capable of being molded into any form.

[00:56:21]Why would he say that? Because he saw the form in which she is formed. the marble woman inside the alabaster, more near the face that had been born with me in my soul than anything I had seen before in nature or art.

[00:56:40]In other words, this essential marble business is implying that he did make her.

[00:56:50]He is the sculptor because when he's talking about Pigon, when he's talking about Pyon and the molding into a visible body, the thought already clothed with form in the unseen hall of his brain, whose brain was an unseen hall recently in which other images were playing his just just now, Remember, he is molding into a visible body the thought already clothed with form inside his unseen hall.

[00:57:32]And that's the marble girl in this alabaster. He did make her with his brain. Well, or he discovered her in his thought.

[00:57:44]But this is him again being being pigon. But he's being pigon on this like higher level.

[00:57:57]Pyon had to use like tools and stuff.

[00:58:01]Pyon only had normal marble to work with a block of marble which you know like any other block of marble.

[00:58:13]And like all physical blocks of marble is imperfect is merely a partial expression of the full spiritual idea of essential marble.

[00:58:29]But here in this cave, this cave may be the home of essential marble.

[00:58:40]And so the woman whom he has formed is not just formed out of you know second grade physical like you know lower grade physical marble in the ideal form you know in an ideal form the ide form of an ideal woman the essential woman but it's essential marble formed into essential woman, the ultimate expression of his own soul.

[00:59:20]So, by the way, you see that one of the things that introducing Plato in to this whole situation has done is remove the art element, at least to stop him thinking about it.

[00:59:33]He's not thinking himself an artist.

[00:59:37]Except again as we can see what kind of art is he associated with is Anidos an artist.

[00:59:46]Kind of is carpets. Exactly. Carpets, the rugs.

[00:59:55]But I think there's more than carpets.

[00:59:59]Remember what he he's he's a poet.

[01:00:01]Mighty Felix. Absolutely. He's a philosopher, sure.

[01:00:06]But he's he's got to follow the story.

[01:00:13]There's a story that he's living that is driving him.

[01:00:24]Yeah. He molded his bedroom into a forest, Bricktales. And um that worked right out, didn't it?

[01:00:31]So in fact, do you see? Do you see now?

[01:00:35]When we look back at chapter 2, what do we see now? Pig million is what we see.

[01:00:42]He made a carpet that looked like a lawn. And what happened? It became a lawn.

[01:00:52]Right?

[01:00:55]It it's what happens to his bedroom which was a work of his own art. His bedroom is like the quickening of the statue.

[01:01:07]His bedroom quickened at the beginning of chapter 2.

[01:01:13]Quickened meaning it came to life.

[01:01:17][snorts] Um Jackie says maybe it's his fairy blood.

[01:01:23]Maybe Maybe.

[01:01:26]And this of course leads us to wonder or should lead us to wonder what um uh yeah moren quickening does mean birth, but it can also mean resurrection, right? The quick is the opposite of dead. Quick as an adjective is the opposite of dead.

[01:01:47]Um something is either quick or it's dead.

[01:01:53]Um, quick just means having life in it.

[01:01:59]Um, the way that life is sort of breathed into his bedroom, the inanimate things is very much a quickening.

[01:02:14]Um, it's very much it's very much a quickening.

[01:02:21]um when an inert thing comes to life. That is what the word quickening means.

[01:02:28]And so yes, it can refer to birth.

[01:02:36]It can be a womb thing.

[01:02:39]New life is quickened within the womb.

[01:02:42]It can be a resurrection thing.

[01:02:47]something that is dead can be made quick under unusual circumstances.

[01:02:53]But indeed, that's what we saw. That's what the big meen story is about, too.

[01:02:58]Quickening.

[01:03:03]Um anyway, okay.

[01:03:15]This is all complicated.

[01:03:17]Then if she should wake awake, but how to awake her?

[01:03:25]How can she be quickened?

[01:03:29]I beth thought me of Orpheus because one cannot have too many mythological references. I thought me of Orpheus and the following stones. The trees that trees should follow his music seemed nothing surprising. Now I beth meio of Orpheus.

[01:03:51]Why does he bethink him of Orpheus?

[01:03:54]How's Orpheus relevant? What did Orpheus do?

[01:03:59]Orpheus went down into the land of the dead and brought his wife out of it. almost his wife died, went down to the underworld. He goes down to the underworld, sings, and the power of his song, the power of his music brings the Lord of the dead to weep and to grant his wife to return with him on condition that he doesn't look back at her.

[01:04:36]and he gets almost to the top and then he walks back and there she is and then she's taken away and he loses her forever.

[01:04:48]I be thought me of Orpheus. Of course he does. Wait a second. Now he's realizing this is a tomb. Remember uh who I said he reminded me of when he went through the hole in the rock in the first place?

[01:05:01]Sir Orio, who is an explicitly explicit parallel to Orpheus, who goes to the land of the who goes into an elf mound and comes out in the land of the dead to claim his dead wife and bring her back home.

[01:05:16]Um, and so now he be thinks him of Orpheus, of course, right? Sir Orio succeeds.

[01:05:29]Sir Orio has a happy ending.

[01:05:33]It's that is such a messed up poem. It is like I find that poem such a mindbender.

[01:05:42]I still don't think I get it. But in any case, so before at the beginning we were sort of laughing at him because it looked like he had arrayed himself for his own burial in a tomb and was blly ignorant of the fact.

[01:06:02]Now he's like, "Oh yeah, no, this is totally a tomb.

[01:06:06]Totally a tomb."

[01:06:10]Um, and this is the land of the dead, and I'm going to bring her out of it. I'm going to set her free. It's a quickening. It's a returning from life, from death to life.

[01:06:24]Yet another very interesting myth to set alongside Pyon as he's doing in his own head here.

[01:06:34]But notice what he thinks about Orpheus.

[01:06:36]the following stones. The stones would follow him when he was singing that trees should follow his music seemed nothing surprising now.

[01:06:46]Now, what does he mean now? Now that he's now that he's in fairyland, antidos. He's like, now that I've been in ferry, I don't find it surprising.

[01:06:57]Or now that he's discovered this woman in alabaster or is it because he like pig melon just happened right now that he's talked to a tree right yes that tree should follow this music seem nothing surprising now right yeah exactly I was just chatting with the beach tree um but also it doesn't seem surprising to him now because Like Pig Meon just literally came true. The pig he just enacted the Pig Meon myth. Like it just happened.

[01:07:35]He was like, "Oh, Pigon. What a lovely story. Now I am Pig Malion." And look, boom. Marble girl. Whamo.

[01:07:44]It's It's all happening.

[01:07:48]And so he's like, "Yeah, Orpheus, sure can do, right?

[01:07:57]Might not a song awake this form, that the glory of motion might for a time displace the loveliness of rest.

[01:08:07]Sweet sounds can go where kisses may not enter. He can't kiss her. It's It's a problem.

[01:08:15]He wants to do the Sleeping Beauty, but can't reach her lips with the whole alabaster block thing.

[01:08:25]But sweet sounds can go where kisses may not enter. I sat at the thought. Now, although always delighting in music, I had never been gifted with the power of song until I entered the fairy forest. I had a voice, and I had a true sense of sound. But when I tried to sing, the one would not contend the other, and so I remained silent.

[01:08:49]This morning, however, I had found myself air, I was aware, rejoicing in a song. But whether it was before or after I had eaten of the fruits of the forest, which I probably shouldn't have eaten, I could not satisfy myself. I concluded it was after, however, I think that's likely too, bud. And the increased example, the increased impulse to sing, I now felt, sorry, the in the sorry, and that the increased impulse to sing I now felt, was in part owing to having drunk of the little well, which shone like a brilliant eye in the corner of the cave.

[01:09:26]I sat down on the ground by the ant the anti-natal tomb.

[01:09:34]anti-natal tomb.

[01:09:40]My goodness.

[01:09:43]The pre-birth tomb. Yeah, exactly, Arthur. The pre-birth tomb is what he calls it.

[01:09:50]So, it is both a resurrection and a birth.

[01:10:01]I I sat down on the ground by the antiatal tomb, leaned upon it with my face towards the head of the figure within, and sang. The words and tones coming together and inseparably connected, as if word and tone formed one thing. or as if each word could be uttered only in that tone and was incapable of distinction from it of distinction from it except an idea by an acute analysis.

[01:10:34]So you two arts of music and poetry are here being perfectly and spontaneously joined.

[01:11:04]and perfectly joined.

[01:11:07]Word and tone formed one thing so pointedly different from his previous experience of his own singing.

[01:11:17]Which problem had always been in the gap that he perceived between the actual words coming the actual sounds coming out of his mouth and what the sound should be.

[01:11:31]Notice we're still in the cave. This is a Plato thing, right?

[01:11:37]Like he's aware of the Platonic idea of music and harmony that's out there, but he when he tries to make that music physical coming from his actual larynx, it's the gap is too big. He can't handle it. And so he remains silent.

[01:12:02]But now the word and the tone come together inseparably connected as if word and tone formed one thing.

[01:12:14]Jackie says it sounds like Tolken. I agree. Doesn't this sound something like the platonic ideal that Tolken himself was always going for?

[01:12:28]that the sound of the word and the idea of the thing should perfectly harmonize with one another.

[01:12:36]That he could find exactly the right sound for the word, the ideas, the word and tone forming one thing.

[01:12:53]Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. He does talk like this in his letters. Um, Mighty Felix says, "So now he's becoming Pig Meonian Orpheus and Tom Bombadil."

[01:13:03]Yeah, something like that.

[01:13:06]Yeah.

[01:13:09]Okay. Now, again, notice that he doesn't say it's actually perfect.

[01:13:15]He doesn't say he's achieved the total Platonic ideal.

[01:13:20]It would be incapable of distinction.

[01:13:23]The two would be incapable of distinction from each other.

[01:13:27]by only by an acute analysis. So like if you really looked at it carefully, you could spot some kind of separation [snorts] there, but it's pretty close.

[01:13:47]See, Joselyn, I think this is completely the opposite of something written under the influence of psychedelic drugs. Completely the opposite.

[01:14:02]It's It's more like John Dunn. It's more like the thing that you're supposed to This is like philosophy being made into story.

[01:14:15]um far from giving us things which in which are like sort of distorted or detached from reality.

[01:14:32]He's um he is thinking through and challenging us to think like that this network of mythological connections pig me and Orpheus um and other stuff um and Plato through all of it, right?

[01:14:59]It's very complicated.

[01:15:03]But it's the opposite of random. It's the opposite of psychedelic, I think.

[01:15:11]Um anyway, I sang something like this, but the words were are only a dull representation of a state whose very elevation precluded the possibility of remembrance and in which I presume the words really employed were far above these were as far above these as that state transcended this wherein and I recall it.

[01:15:48]So once again, he disclaims the fact that the poem that we're about to read is what he said.

[01:15:55]It's only something like what he's saying, but it's only a dull representation.

[01:16:06]Notice he breaks the frame again here as the state as uh this wherein I recall it he is referring to the state in which he himself is presently while he's narrating while he's actually putting pen to paper describing this. So once again, sort of like removing us from the immediacy of the situation, reminding us that he is not telling us things.

[01:16:44]He's not exactly telling us things spontaneously as they happened. He's reflecting on it later and reflecting on it later in a state of mind which is quite different from the state of mind in which he was.

[01:17:01]But here's the poem which is vaguely like it.

[01:17:08]Marble woman vainly sleeping in the very death of dreams. Wilt thou slumber from thee sweeping all but what with vision teams? Hear my voice come through the golden mist of memory and hope and with shadowy smile embolden me with primal death to cope.

[01:17:30]Thee the sculptors all pursuing have embodied but their own. Round their visions form enduring marble vestments thou hast thrown. But thyself in silence winding thou hast kept eternally. Thee they found not many finding. I have found thee. Wake for me.

[01:17:51]Okay, you see what happened there? Let's go through this a little carefully.

[01:17:56]first stanza and I'm going to content myself with just making sure we understand what that is talking about. I'm not going to get too deep into the poetic techniques he's using.

[01:18:14]Marble woman vainly sleeping in the very death of dreams.

[01:18:24]dreams and vanity. Vanity in the sense of uh uh like helplessness, pointlessness um is the state that he describes her being in wilt thou so he's asking her.

[01:18:43]Notice the sentence is wilt thou hear my voice?

[01:18:51]That's his question, but he interrupts it. Wilt thou slumber from thee sweeping all but what with vision teams?

[01:19:00]So will you you know so um are you going to sweep the slumber away from yourself that is to say wake up except uh all but what with vision teams that is don't sweep away all the slumber because with the slumber comes vision dream.

[01:19:25]Um apparently she might want to keep some of that. Um but so you can keep the dream but um sweep away the slumber.

[01:19:38]Will you hear my doing that? Hear hear my voice. Come through the golden mist of memory and hope that is her memory and her hope that his voice is coming through. It could be his memory and hope.

[01:19:58]Or maybe it's a mist of memory and hope that sort of lies between them and that's why his voice is coming through it.

[01:20:05]So it's a little uncertain whose memory and whose hope we're talking about here.

[01:20:10]Could be his, could be hers, could be both.

[01:20:13]She is an ideal woman.

[01:20:16]And with the shadowy smile embolden me with primal death to cope.

[01:20:23]This is what she'll do.

[01:20:25]This is again, wilt thou wilt thou hear my voice and embolden me with to cope with primal death?

[01:20:43]Yeah, it could be her memory and his hope. Mighty Felix, he needs to be able to cope with primal death.

[01:20:53]needs to be emboldened to do that. And her shadowy smile, shadow again, a Plato word.

[01:21:04]Well, Plato by way of Shakespeare, but not even going to go there. Essence and shadow. essence, the high platonic level of forms, ideas, the perfect spiritual things.

[01:21:24]Those are essences and the physical matter.

[01:21:31]These are shadows.

[01:21:35]um with shadowy smile meaning a smile on her physical lips on the physical form the marble the sculptor all pursuing have embodied but their own.

[01:21:56]So all of the sculptors pursue her.

[01:22:03]He says she's the ideal.

[01:22:07]She's the ideal woman cast in ideal marble, essential marble.

[01:22:16]Every other sculptor who's ever tried to sculpt a woman has been like she is the image that they were all reaching for.

[01:22:29]Round their visions form enduring marble vestments thou hast drawn.

[01:22:39]She has drawn marble clothing form enduring around their visions. Again their visions were all they were pursuing the ideal. That's her.

[01:22:58]And she, that thing which was their vision, all of their ideal visions, she has thrown marble vestments form enduring.

[01:23:08]She's real. She's made that essential form a reality. But thyself and silence winding, thou hast kept eternally.

[01:23:18]Thee they found not. Many finding I have found thee. Wake for me.

[01:23:26]Thee they found not many finding.

[01:23:30]So they found many but they didn't find her. That is the what the other sculptors made. You know the other like second rate pig malians.

[01:23:43]They found many things when they were looking for her but they didn't find her. I have found thee. Wake for me.

[01:23:55]So he's telling her to wake up obviously, but first he speaks of it as emboldening him to cope with primal death. [snorts] So we've got the death and life and sleeping and dreaming stuff going on in the first stanza and the pyon stuff explicitly in the second stanza and the Plato stuff.

[01:24:22]Okay. Um All right.

[01:24:31]But that song doesn't do the trick. So he sings a second song. Rest is now filled full of beauty and can give thee up I come thou forth for other duty motion pine for her queen.

[01:24:49]Or if needing years to wake thee from thy slumber solitudes, come sleepwalking, and betake thee to the friendly sleeping woods. Sweeter dreams are in the forest round these storms would never rave. And when need of rest is sorest, glide thou then into thy cave. Or if still thou choost rather, marble be its spell on me. Let thy slumber round me gather. Let another dream with thee.

[01:25:22]Okay, Bricktails, that's a fascinating question, isn't it? Why did he go from two eight line stanzas to four fourline stanzas?

[01:25:34]It's an interesting question, isn't it?

[01:25:37]Um, notice his rhyme scheme. A B A B C D C D What does he do here?

[01:25:51]Same thing, right? Mostly. Yes.

[01:25:58]Um, so it's very like it's the same exact length poem. It's the same exact form poem except not quite.

[01:26:15]This poem, the second song begins and ends with rest.

[01:26:21]Rest is now filled full of beauty. Why?

[01:26:25]Because she's in it. She's resting.

[01:26:28]She's asleep. And so she is filling sleep with beauty because she's there and can give thee up. I we think that sleep can rest can spare you because it's filled it's it's filled up with beauty.

[01:26:48]Come thou forth for other duty motion pineith for her queen.

[01:26:54]So you've got rest and you've got motion.

[01:26:58]Rest has had her for a long time. Um, now motion needs her.

[01:27:07]She's the queen of motion as she's been the queen of rest.

[01:27:12]So she has other duty to do.

[01:27:16]Or if needing years to wake thee from thy slumber solitudes, come sleepwalking and betake thee to the friendly sleeping woods.

[01:27:28]So if there needs if there's going to be a process of waking up come sleepwalking like a middle state between rest and motion. That's what sleepwalking is after all right and bet but take thee to the friendly sleeping woods. The woods are you know like restful and stuff.

[01:27:51]Sweeter dreams are in the forest. Round thee storms would never rave. And when need of rest is sorest, glide thou then into thy cave. If you need to go back to rest, come back to the cave. Come out of the cave now into the forest with me.

[01:28:09]But you can go back into the cave. Or if still thou choost rather marble, be it spell on me. Let thy slumber round me gather, let another dream with thee. So there's a second alternative. If you won't emerge from rest into motion, let me enter rest with you.

[01:28:32]I'll be a marble statue, too. We can be marbled together.

[01:28:37]The middle state is weird. The sleepwalking thing is strange, though. I think it's like even if I can only have you half awake rather that like that would be better.

[01:28:58]Um yeah, it's it's I'm not sure I see the force of it.

[01:29:11]Come sleepwalking and betake thee to the friendly sleeping woods.

[01:29:17]Sweeter dreams are in the forest round thee storms would never rave.

[01:29:24]Like what is he like assuring her? She would be safe. She'd be safer and happier in that halfway between rest and motion state of sleepwalking. Anyway, let's see where we go in the third poem.

[01:29:46]Another 16 lines.

[01:29:49]Same structure.

[01:29:52]Or art thou death, O woman. For since I have set me singing by thy side, life hath forsook the upper sky, and all the outer world hath died.

[01:30:04]Yay, I am dead, for thou hast drawn my life all downward unto thee. Dead moon of love, let twilight dawn, awake and let the darkness flee. Cold lady of the lovely stone, awake or I shall perish here, and thou be never more alone, my form and I for ages near.

[01:30:26]But words are vain. Reject them all.

[01:30:29]They utter but a feeble part. Hear thou the depths from which they call the voiceless longing of my heart.

[01:30:43]Okay. Yeah. Um, Adam, I'm agreeing this is not sounding like a good plan, even if it works.

[01:30:51]Art thou deaf? Now, notice how he begins this third poem with a conjunction, linking back to his second one. When he says, "Or art thou deaf?" Like, "Or as an alternative to what?"

[01:31:05]Well, sleep. That's what rest is now filled full of beauty.

[01:31:12]She's the queen of rest and he's wanting her to become the queen of motion.

[01:31:18]Or wait, maybe you're not rest. Maybe you're deaf.

[01:31:24]Also, this is the alternative to the first poem when he was saying like, "Hey, hear my voice and embolden me with primal death to cope."

[01:31:38]As if death was something outside the both of them.

[01:31:43]And through the connection between them established by his voice, she could help him cope with that external thing.

[01:31:51]But on the third poem, he's like, "Oh, well, shoot. What if you're deaf? A woman, are you deaf?

[01:32:03]Kind of seems like it. Cuz while I've set myself singing by your side, um, life has hath forsook the upper sky and all the outer world hath died.

[01:32:17]Since I've been lying here, everything else in the world is dead and only you matter. By the way, this is like so I think Dun would love this poem.

[01:32:33]Um, this is exactly how a metaphysical poet would woo his girlfriend or his, you know, wannabe girlfriend. Wannabe by him, of course.

[01:32:45]Um, are you death?

[01:32:52]Yay, I am dead, for thou hast drawn my life all downward unto thee.

[01:33:00]Dead moon of love.

[01:33:02]Let twilight dawn awake and let the darkness flee. Yeah, sounds like a super weird pickup line, but Calvin, see again, that's metaphysical poets all over the place, right? Um, have you ever read John Dunn's poem, The Flea?

[01:33:21]It's a pretty famous one. Uh, in which John Dunn is contemplating a flea that bit him and bit her bit her first, I think, and then it bites him and that his blood and her blood have mingled inside the body of the flea, right? like it's so it's like a contemplation of marriage and it's yeah anyway totally a metaphysical poet kind of pickup line.

[01:33:55]Um thou hast drawn my life all downward unto thee quickening. Remember that's what the Pyonian story was about.

[01:34:10]That's what this whole thing has been about. Quickening, coming from life, from death into life, from sleeping into waking.

[01:34:21]And he's describing his own journey.

[01:34:24]He's deadening. He's not quickening.

[01:34:32]My life all downward unto thee. Dead moon of love. Dead moon of love.

[01:34:41]Let twilight dawn awake and let the darkness flee. So if she awakes, she will be like the moon rising and making the darkness flee.

[01:34:54]It's like the twilight is like dawn because the moon comes up and so she's the dead moon of love.

[01:35:12]That is not very complimentary.

[01:35:18]Cold lady of the lovely stone, awake or I shall perish here and thou be never more alone, my form and I for ages near.

[01:35:32]Huh? Okay. So he starts off saying, "Please wake up or I'm going to die. If you don't wake up, it's going to kill me." Now, this is classic, you know, sonnet poetry rhetoric, right? Um, this is classic courtly love poetry.

[01:35:58]I am dying of love for you. Have mercy upon me, lady, and spare me from death.

[01:36:02]You are the only one who can spare me from death. If you don't love me, I will die. Um, and various guilt trips thereupon, right? You don't want to be a murderer, do you? Etc., etc. But yeah, Miss Ray, he takes he starts out like that, sounding just like that.

[01:36:21]Awake or I shall perish here. Petrarch might have said that. Petro probably did say that. Um but then he does Miss Ray as you suggest take it in a totally different way. And thou be never more alone my form and I for ages near if he dies there by her side.

[01:36:46]He's [snorts] going to right now she needs quickening. She's dead marble and needs to come to life.

[01:36:54]He is losing life and so he is becoming dead like her. So he'll join her just like he imagine doing. Let thy slumber around me gather. Let another dream with thee. It's kind of like that.

[01:37:10]But words are vain. Reject them all.

[01:37:13]They utter but a feeble part.

[01:37:16]Plato again.

[01:37:19]Everything that he's saying can't capture the idea.

[01:37:26]Hear thou the depths from which they call the voiceless longing of my heart.

[01:37:31]Hey, ideal woman made of essential marble, won't you see the true form and idea that lies behind my words instead of paying attention to the songs and stuff?

[01:37:58]There arose a slightly crashing sound.

[01:38:01][laughter] Sorry, I just love that sentence. A slightly crashing sound. Come on.

[01:38:11][laughter] Who talks like that?

[01:38:15]Well, that sound was slightly crashing.

[01:38:18]There arose a slightly crashing sound, like a sudden apparition that comes and is gone. A white form veiled in a light robe of whiteness burst upwards from the stone stood, glided forth, and gleamed away towards the woods.

[01:38:36]For I followed to the mouth of the cave, as soon as the amazement and concentration of delight permitted the nerves of motion again to act. Oh, you mean like you move from rest to motion there finally? and saw the white form amidst the trees, as it crossed a little glade on the edge of the forest, where the sunlight fell full, seeming to gather with intenser radiance on the one object that floated rather than flitted through its lake of beams.

[01:39:03]I gazed after her in a kind of despair, found, freed, lost. It seemed useless to follow, yet follow I must. I marked the direction she took, and without once looking round to the forsaken cave, I hastened towards the forest.

[01:39:27]I think this is going this is going great.

[01:39:30]I think that um I'm I'm so happy for Anidos right now and this um you know Yeah, I agree Jackie. The aliteration is going great.

[01:39:54]What is the alliteration?

[01:39:56]What's the It's the Fs, right? What's at the heart of it? What's the What does it draw our attention to?

[01:40:16]The the the action floated and flitted.

[01:40:19]Yeah.

[01:40:22]I would point to three words, maybe four. Moren, I'll buy that one, too.

[01:40:33]Form, followed, found, freed.

[01:40:42]Listen for the Fs again after the slightly crashing [laughter] sound. I just can't I can't not laugh reading that sentence. It's so good.

[01:40:55]Like a sudden apparition that comes and is gone, a white form. Form is our first f-word in the whole paragraph. Veiled in a light robe of whiteness burst upwards from the stone, stood, glided forth, and gleamed away towards the woods.

[01:41:13]stone stood, glided, gleamed, veiled in a light robe of whiteness.

[01:41:23]For I followed to the mouth of the cave, as soon as the amazement and concentration of delight permitted the nerves of motion again to act, and saw the white form amidst the trees, as it crossed a little glade on the edge of the forest, where the sunlight fell full, seeming to gather with intenser radiance on the one object that floated rather than flitted through its lake of beams, I gazed after her in a kind of despair, found, freed, lost.

[01:41:53]It seemed useless to follow. Yet follow I must.

[01:42:01]I marked the direction she took, and without once looking round to the forsaken cave, I hastened towards the forest.

[01:42:16]She is a form veiled in a light robe of whiteness.

[01:42:24]Is she a body or is she just a form? Remember, she's she's an ideal woman made of a central marble. She is a platonic ideal.

[01:42:38]She's his platonic ideal. That face that's been in his soul since birth.

[01:42:47]And she's looking like it veiled in a light robe of whiteness, which is something like the opposite of a shadow, which is what physical bodies are.

[01:43:02]And I love gleamed away towards the woods as if gleaming is a mode of travel, right? Is a is a is a description of motion gleamed away towards the woods.

[01:43:19]For I followed to the mouth of the cave as soon as the amazement and concentration of delight permitted the nerves of motion again to act.

[01:43:28]So, he had a hard time getting himself his physical body into motion.

[01:43:35]She just flits, but he's got to use his nerves to talk to his muscles and clumsily follow.

[01:43:48]And once again, she's a white form, not a body.

[01:43:57]Yeah. She doesn't flit. She floats. I know. Sorry.

[01:44:01]Um, as it crossed a little glade, he sees it in the full sunlight after all that nocturnal stuff, all that night talk and dead moons and things like that. Dead moon of love. Um, the sun sunlight is falling full upon her, seeming to gather with intenser radiance on the one object that floated rather than flitted through its lake of beams.

[01:44:42]That is, she does not seem to be moving with the movement of a body, but to be just floating along, found, freed, lost.

[01:45:04]Okay. Um, yeah, I gotta let you go, Marine, before everybody slightly crashes. Uh, it's getting late. Um, we only got to the end of chapter 5, but that was a lot. Um, isn't that Pymon Plato slash um Orpheus? Stuff's all it's that was very meaty what was going on there. Um, tune in next time when he finds another story come to life, which will be interesting.

[01:45:46]Um, yeah. So, Marie, I I'm thinking pro probably six is sufficient uh ambition.

[01:45:56]I I think I might as well resign myself to the one chapter a week pace that we're pretty much abiding by. Um maybe I'll get frisky and get into chapter 7 next time too, but um it seems a little bit difficult to predict that. Um and and in any case, if we only do a chapter, well, there's 25 chapters in the book, so 25 sessions is not like that's ridiculous compared to other things that we have done. Um so, um we'll we'll do what we can. McDonald is rewarding to read slowly like this and to really think through. Um, I do think if you read McDonald Fast, it does begin to feel like a drug trip. Um, like you might feel like you're having a drug trip [laughter] if you read McDonald Fast.

[01:46:51]But I don't, again, I don't think that that is his intended effect.

[01:46:58]Instead, he's just I I can't help but feel like we're reading McDonald in the way that McDonald is asking to be read.

[01:47:05]Basically, it's um just like I I keep referring to John Dunn in the metaphysical poets, but that's who McDonald reminds me of so much. Um you know, a a John Dunn sonnet, you can't just read it once and be like, "Oh, yeah, I get it." Like, no, no, you don't. Like, you've got to read it another 10 times before you like begin to see, you know, how it how it works together and you'll still be missing a whole bunch. Um, and I feel like McD McDonald is kind of similar that way.

[01:47:38]It's a similar kind of effect. So, it's all good. Um, all right. Um, yeah, Mighty Felix, I sped through this the first time I read it, too. Um, and I just remember the effect was just like, whoa, that was weird. [laughter] And I did not get much of it. Um, so this has been really, really fun for me.

[01:48:01]Um, all right.

[01:48:06]Thank you everybody. Um, I will not be here next week. Um, but, um, I should be back the week after, he says cautiously.

[01:48:17]Yes, I believe I'll be here the week after. Um, all right. Thanks everybody.

[01:48:22]See you guys again soon. Bye now.