..and the tortoise crawls

I have been to see the exhibition Troy: Myth and Reality at the British Museum. I won't write too much about it in detail - there are many reviews online which do that - but I do recommend seeing it if you get the chance.

It's broken into three sections. Firstly, Homer's poetry as represented on various artefacts from almost contemporaneously with him through to the end of the classical era. This section is mainly focussed on a few episodes spanning the whole story from the judgement of Paris via the dispute over Briseis and its consequences in the deaths of Patroclus, Hector etc, the ruse of the horse, and right through to Odysseus' return to the waiting Penelope.

The second section features the excavations of the the real Troy and contains many objects found by Schliemann and the third consists of post-classical representations of the myth.

As I say, I thought it was excellent. I especially liked the very stylised outline representation of the Trojan Horse through which one had to pass between the first two parts of the exhibition. Disappointingly I felt no urge for some early Bronze Age wargaming, but perhaps the idea will grow on me.

Then shriek'd the timid, and stood still the brave

"It’s something like going on an ocean voyage. What can I do? Pick the captain, the boat, the date, and the best time to sail. But then a storm hits… What are my options? I do the only thing I am in a position to do, drown - but fearlessly, without bawling or crying out to God, because I know that what is born must also die."

- Epictetus

Credit where it's due

"I am so changeable, being everything by turns and nothing long" - Byron

My intention to revisit the Great War didn't last, and I have been playing about with the Roman version of Pony Wars. I first outlined what I was intending to do in this post from over a year ago, so I've got round to it pretty promptly for me. Unsurprisingly however it's not as straightforward as it seemed at the time. I like the arrival of Celts being caused by Roman movement (a direct steal from The Men Who Would Be Kings) and have been working on the assumption that one could then just get rid of the cards completely. However, I have been unable to come up with a satisfactory alternative mechanism for either  the activities of the various Roman civilians on the table or for attacks on them to be triggered. Any suggestions would be welcomed.

The post from last January referenced above would appear to contain something that isn't strictly true - gasps of incredulity from the readership - and which I would like to correct. The person to first suggest the idea of programmable computers wasn't Babbage at all, but rather it was Ada Lovelace. I studied the history of mathematics as part of my first degree and should have been more precise. I am very sorry indeed for having misled you. After all, as her father also wrote, you "should envy no one the certainty of his self-approved wisdom". Perhaps Daniel Mersey's AI opponent in the rules should be known as Countess Lovelace instead of Mr Babbage - it still sounds suitably Victorian.

The truth in masquerade

"I have always loved truth so passionately that I have often resorted to lying as a way of introducing it into the minds which were ignorant of its charms." - Giacomo Casanova

One or two questions have been raised about the Jackson C. Frank anecdote in the previous post. In response I would firstly say that it seemed to me to be one of those stories which is too good to check, and secondly that I have on a number of occasions pointed out that one would be wise not to take everything that appears here at face value.

And that's a moral that also applies elsewhere. One of my so-called rivals in the world of wargames blogs has, by who knows what photoshop trickery, published a picture which seems to show me using my phone whilst a wargame is in progress, with the implication that I am engaged in some alternative and reprehensible activity instead of focussing on the game. You can be comforted therefore, gentle readers, when I reassure you that I have a hobby that I take very seriously, work at assiduously, give all the attention that it deserves and at which I am very successful.

Anyway, back to wargaming. The game this week is at my house and I don't think it's worth doing any more WWI stuff until we've played this first scenario through and can see where it all may or may not be going. Painting action has therefore moved to ancients, where spurred on by recent To the Strongest! games I am finishing the loss markers for Celts and Romans and painting up a few Newline Celtic slingers, despite the fact that I already have more than the maximum that can be fielded. It's the only way.

Lo! Cintra’s glorious Eden intervenes

"& above all of Cintra, the most blessed spot in the habitable globe" - Robert Southey

It has been pointed out to me that going to Sintra via Estoril is a strange route to take unless one's starting position is somewhere out in the Atlantic Ocean. That is obviously true and I stand corrected. I suspect that what I was really doing while sneering through the train window at Estoril's lack of scale was taking a day trip from Lisbon to Cascais. I'd rather go to Sintra anyway, it's a much nicer place. Byron must have liked it - although it was one of the many words that he couldn't spell properly - and he started writing 'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage' while he was there.

“Everything in Sintra is divine. There is no corner that is not a poem.” -Eça de Queirós

That, by the way, is a quote from Os Maias, my favourite of his novels, and one that cries out for a BBC Andrew Davies adaptation. Eça de Queirós should rank alongside Dickens and Tolstoy and this book's main theme, explicitly stated, is one that the latter only alludes to in War and Peace; although Davies of course wasn't as reticent.

Morn came and went and came, and brought no day

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." 

- Martin Luther King Jr.

The mould of the body and mind

"Always be a poet, even in prose." - Baudelaire

A couple of readers have offered me some tips and pointers regarding the blog. The first - well-intentioned no doubt, but someone who perhaps isn't as au fait with the world of toy soldiers as he might be - says cut out all the stuff about teak varnish. The second says avoid anything risqué and include more poetry. Excellent advice from both I think. Varnish I can take or leave, but I love poetry, and have always felt - and I say this in the greatest humility - that I shared certain traits with some of the great English poets of the early nineteenth century. Byron was disreputable, Shelley was left-wing, and Keats was extremely fond of Fanny.

Miss Brawne

So, here is a quote from a letter that Keats wrote to his fiancée:

 "My dear Girl I love you ever and ever and without reserve. The more I have known you the more have I lov'd. In every way - even my jealousies have been agonies of Love, in the hottest fit I ever had I would have died for you. I have vex'd you too much. But for Love! Can I help it? You are always new. The last of your kisses was ever the sweetest; the last smile the brightest."

 "Tout ce qui n'est point prose, est vers; et tout ce qui n'est point vers, est prose." - Molière

 

In silence and tears

When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning  
Sank chill on my brow--
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame;
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.

They name thee before me,
A knell in mine ear;
A shudder come o'er me--
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well--
Long, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.

In secret we met--
In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?--
With silence and tears.

                       - Byron

Atramentous

My soul is dark - Oh! quickly string
The harp I yet can brook to hear;
And let thy gentle fingers fling
Its melting murmurs o'er mine ear.
If in this heart a hope be dear,
That sound shall charm it forth again:
If in these eyes there lurk a tear,
'Twill flow, and cease to burn my brain.

But bid the strain be wild and deep,
Nor let thy notes of joy be first:
I tell thee, minstrel, I must weep,
Or else this heavy heart will burst;
For it hath been by sorrow nursed,
And ached in sleepless silence, long;
And now 'tis doomed to know the worst,
And break at once - or yield to song.

                         - Byron