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Ode to Man
Tho’ many are the terrors,
not one more terrible than man goes.
This one beyond the grizzled sea
in winter storming to the south
He crosses, all-engulfed,
cutting through, up from under swells.
& of the gods She the Eldest, Earth
un-withering, un-toiling, is worn down,
As the Twisting Plough’s year
into Twisting Plough’s year,
Through the breeding of horse, he turns.
& the lighthearted race of birds
all-snaring he drives them
& savage beasts, their clan, & of the sea,
marine in kind
With tightly-wound meshes spun
from all-seeing is Man.
Yet too, he masters by means of pastoral
beast, mountain-trodding,
The unruly-maned horse holding fast,
‘round the neck yoked,
& the mountain’s
ceaseless bull.
& the voice & wind-fast thought
& the passion for civic ways
He has taught, so from crag’s poor court
from under the ether’s hard-tossed arrows
To flee, this all-crossing one. Blocked, he comes
upon nothing so fated.
From Hades alone escape he’ll not bring.
Tho’ from sickness impossible
Flight he has pondered.
A skilled one, devising of arts beyond hope,
Holding at times an evil,
But then to the noble he crawls,
honoring the laws of the Earth, &
Of gods the oath so just,
high-citied.
Citiless is the one who with the un-beautiful
dwells, boldly in grace.
Never for me a hearth-mate
may he have been, never equal in mind
He who offers this.
Ode to Man
A BwO is made in such a way that it can be occupied, populated only by intensities. Only intensities pass and circulate. Still, the BwO is not a scene, a place, or even a support upon which something comes to pass. It has nothing to do with phantasy, there is nothing to interpret. The BwO causes intensities to pass; it produces and distributes them in a spatium that is itself intensive, lacking extension. It is not space, nor is it in space; it is matter that occupies space to a given degree—to the degree corresponding to
the intensities produced. It is nonstratified, unformed, intense matter, the matrix of intensity, intensity = 0; but there is nothing negative about that zero, there are no negative or opposite intensities. Matter equals energy. Production of the real as an intensive magnitude starting at zero. That is why we treat the BwO as the full egg before the extension of the organism and the organization of the organs, before the formation of the strata; as the intense egg defined by axes and vectors, gradients and thresholds, by dynamic tendencies involving energy transformation and kinematic movements involving group displacement, by migrations: all independent
of accessory forms because the organs appear and function here only as pure intensities. The organ changes when it crosses a threshold, when it
changes gradient. "No organ is constant as regards either function or position, . . . sex organs sprout anywhere,... rectums open, defecate and close, . . . the entire organism changes color and consistency in split-second adjustments." The tantric egg. After all, is not Spinoza's Ethics the great book of the BwO?
Ode to Man
But human power is extremely limited, and is infinitely surpassed by the power of external causes; we have not, therefore, an absolute power of shaping to our use those things which are without us. Nevertheless, we shall bear with an equal mind all that happens to us in contravention to the claims of our own advantage, so long as we are conscious, that we have done our duty, and that the power which we possess is not sufficient to enable us to protect ourselves completely; remembering that we are a part of universal nature, and that we follow her order. If we have a clear and distinct understanding of this, that part of our nature which is defined by intelligence, in other words the better part of ourselves, will assuredly acquiesce in what befalls us, and in such acquiescence will endeavour to persist. For, in so far as we are intelligent beings, we cannot desire anything save that which is necessary, nor yield absolute acquiescence to anything, save to that which is true: wherefore, in so far as we have a right understanding of these things, the endeavour of the better part of ourselves is in harmony with the order of nature as a whole.
I had begun to suspect you were a classicist, and then this removed most doubt. I took a few semesters of Attic Greek and you’re making me miss the days when I could’ve probably (very slowly) read Plotinus in the original.
Any recommendations (Chalmers already noted) for readings in panpsychism? I’d like to get my hands on that essay Iain Hamilton Grant wrote for Mind that Abides, but I’m afraid that’s probably one of those $75 books that I won’t buy on principle…
Just wanted to say …. beautiful.
John, thank you.
AL, Sorry to disappoint, but I certainly am no Classicist, nor anything within academia. I am just a writer with one might say a passion for the Ancient Greek language and literature. My translations are no doubt to some degree error prone, and always are experimental, always trying to draw something out otherwise largely missed.
There seems to be very little on Panpsychism. There is the Whitehead influenced work of Hartschorne and with a slightly religious bent, Process Theology which counts as “panentheism”. Perhaps others know of something more. My study of panpsychism actually comes from tracing the roots of Spinoza’s thinking myself. There also really is very little on Plotinus as well. Schroeder’s “Form and Transformation: A Study in the Philosophy of Plotinus” is pretty good.
From what I understand, The Mind that Abides is on Google Books, and quite a few pages are available for reading, if you want to breeze through.
Nicely done; I think the idea of translating Plotinus into verse is quite inspired, actually.
I see that we share some common interests, so I’m adding you to my blogroll.
Well classicist or not I like your posts on classical topics/poetry. More proof that you don’t have to do it professionally to be good at it.
Anyway, thanks for the recommendations, I forgot to check google books for MtA.
Thanks for the compliments. Good to hear that others enjoy some of my thoughts.
Reading the opening stanza of your translation of Plotinus, I was reminded of the Dao De Jing. Here are a few of the numerous translations of Chapter 1.
—–
The Way that can be told of is not an unvarying way;
The names that can be named are not unvarying names.
It was from the Nameless that Heaven and Earth sprang;
The named is but the mother that rears the ten thousand creatures, each after its kind.
—–
The Way that can be experienced is not true;
The world that can be constructed is not true.
The Way manifests all that happens and may happen;
The world represents all that exists and may exist.
To experience without intention is to sense the world;
To experience with intention is to anticipate the world.
These two experiences are indistinguishable;
Their construction differs but their effect is the same.
Beyond the gate of experience flows the Way,
Which is ever greater and more subtle than the world.
——
The Tao that can be known is not Tao.
The substance of the World is only a name for Tao.
Tao is all that exists and may exist;
The World is only a map of what exists and may exist.
One experiences without Self to sense the World,
And experiences with Self to understand the World.
The two experiences are the same within Tao;
They are distinct only within the World.
Neither experience conveys Tao
Which is infinitely greater and more subtle than the World.
——
The Tao that can be known is not Tao. The substance of the World is only a name for Tao. Tao is all that exists and may exist;
The World is only a map of what exists and may exist. One experiences without Self to sense the World, And experiences with Self to understand the World. The two experiences are the same within Tao; They are distinct only within the World. Neither experience conveys Tao Which is infinitely greater and more subtle than the World.
John
John,
There can be no doubt that translations of the Tao de Ching influenced both the desire I had to put Plotinus in verse, but also the values of Richard John Lynn’s particularly scholarly and prose translation itself: http://books.google.com/books?id=07NEx7U0HrgC , which works to strip the words down to bare essentials, restrict explication and the resolution of ambiguity. I did not though have it specifically in mind, as these are what I look for in translation in general. The section 6 reference to the root of Heaven and Earth, the Gushen Valley Spirit, did come to mind momentarily when Plotinus tells us that it is the very emptiness of the Hen that makes it overflow.
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