In Naude’s book, The history of magick, he writes:
“There is a story that among many birds that came not neer the Temple of Minerva, the Goddesse of Sciences and Reason, the Crows durst not take their flight about it., much less light upon it. If it be lawfull to give it any other sense than the literall, I think the most probable were this: that that bird, so considerable in the superstitious Augury of the Ancients… being the true Hieroglyphick of those who search after things to come, it is to teach us, that all those who are over-inquisitive in such things, together with the Authours and Observers of I know not what chimericall and fabulous prophecies… should be eternally excluded the Temple of Minerva, that is, the conversation of learned and prudent men.”
Learned and prudent men! Yesteryear’s op ed men, the pundits of the ages, the Delphic codgers, the many weary generations of David Broders, down through the epochs! The ones who condemned Socrates to death, but would have preferred exile for the troublemaking old snake. (and an independent party in Athens composed of moderates from both sides). Indeed, between the crow and the owl there is an enmity set. LI has been comparing ourselves to a crow, lately – actually feel crow like, inclined to raucous cawing, dire views, and the smell of carrion, wake up all beaky and shit, shedding black feathers – and now we see the hieroglyphical reasons. You think we weave our metaphors out of tv ads or the images in Thomas Friedmen’s books or something? Fuck that! Naude also says that crow wisdom is barren witch wisdom, “the fantasicall predictions of certain Figure-flingers, and the Cunning-women…”
I like that. I feel as puffed up as a crow looking in a mirror…
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6 comments:
I hope this is the first in a whole series of avian delvings. It may be your hair that makes you look crow, but don't eat crow, make thine enemies eat it. My prayer for the Thanksralphing Holidaymakers is that they have plenty of Roast Buzzard with 'Possum Stuffing. Faulkner admired buzzards as I recall, and I always thought that they were nature's handmaidens too..
I don't know what the Greeks thought about the buzzards. But I do know, last year, in South Carolina, I got a chance to see a crowd of them close up. They were stripping a dead doe by the side of the road. The does body was hard to see - it was covered with this swarming mass. My sister and I for some reason decided to check this out, so we approached, and a few of the buzzards reluctantly flapped away from the doe, and then they started looking us up and down. My sis snapped a picture, I said, let's get out of here! And this crow did not have to encounter one of those naked necked turkies.
Hey, getting off birds - hope you read the article about your next governor, Eliot Spitzer, in the NYT today. I loved the quote where Spitzer says he is going to put a spike through somebody's heart. NY, man! It is like an HBO tv series.
Although, out of pity, I might be tempted to vote for Pirro. I rather like her decisive action with her foolin' around hubby - bug the bastard.
ps - and I should have added to the Pirro comment -- that is aso often the dilemma with voting. On the one hand, bad policy - on the other hand, good tabloid.
Thanks, roger, because I wouldn't have even seen that otherwise. May say something later, but first paragraph already proves this is going to be good piece.
We used to have buzzards around a dead dog at Rawls Bottom, which was on the way to town. I liked the way they stood there as though they had no nerves of steel, and I guess they do.
I meant 'as if they had nerves of steel,' of course.
Wonderful stuff, very exciting. He's like Giuliani. That Merrill Lynch thing, and then torturing the Grasso freak. Oh well, you know we can't all be perfect, including all of us. But I like this sort of person, cannot wait to vote for him. I have worked temp that had slimy laywers in them, would have rather worked for somebody like this except all law offices are so horrible. Now, as for Ms. Pirro, I don't blame her for tabloidism, but I can't really admire her: It is clear that if she read 'Play It As It Lays', she did not take it to heart as the truly enlightened woman would...That was definitely a sensuous read, all those companies interacting, and all that business about how Spitzer was doing stuff within the state apparatus that was supposed to be Federal--well, more power to him, that's balls.
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