The War Between the Kingdom of Provocation and the Kingdom of Stupidity

“On the left horn of the snail there is a kingdom which is called
Provocation, and on the right horn another which is called Stupidity.”

I enjoy stories from ancient days, if only for the lesson that people really haven’t changed much. Here is a favorite from Zhuangzi, about a king angry over a broken treaty and the counsel of his advisors, who sound to me a lot like the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhauser warned us about:

(King) Yung of Wei made a treaty with the marquis Thien Mâu (of Khî), which the latter violated. The king was enraged, and intended to send a man to assassinate him. When the Minister of War heard of it, he was ashamed, and said (to the king), ‘You are a ruler of 10,000 chariots, and by means of a common man would avenge yourself on your enemy. I beg you to give me, Yen, the command of 200,000 soldiers to attack him for you. I will take captive his people and officers, halter (and lead off) his oxen and horses, kindling a fire within him that shall burn to his backbone. I will then storm his capital; and when he shall run away in terror, I will flog his back and break his spine.’ Kî-Tsze heard of this advice, and was ashamed of it, and said (to the king), ‘We have been raising the wall (of our capital) to a height of eighty cubits, and the work has been completed. If we now get it thrown down, it will be a painful toil to the convict builders. It is now seven years since our troops were called out, and this is the foundation of the royal sway. Yen would introduce disorder;– he should not be listened to.’ Hwâ-tsze heard of this advice, and, greatly disapproving of it, said (to the king), ‘He who shows his skill in saying “Attack Khî!” would produce disorder; and he who shows his skill in saying “Do not attack it ” would also produce disorder. And one who should (merely) say, “The counsellors to attack Khî and not to attack it would both produce disorder,” would himself also lead to the same result.’ The king said, ‘Yes, but what am I to do?’ The reply was, ‘You have only to seek for (the rule of) the Tâo (on the subject).’

Hui-tsze, having heard of this counsel, introduced to the king Tâi Tsin-zan, who said, ‘There is the creature called a snail; does your majesty know it?’ ‘I do.’ ‘On the left horn of the snail there is a kingdom which is called Provocation, and on the right horn another which is called Stupidity. These two kingdoms are continually striving about their territories and fighting. The corpses that lie on the ground amount to several myriads. The army of one may be defeated and put to flight, but in fifteen days it will return.’ The king said, ‘Pooh! that is empty talk!’ The other rejoined, ‘Your servant begs to show your majesty its real significance. When your majesty thinks of space– east, west, north, and south, above and beneath– can you set any limit to it?’ ‘It is illimitable,’ said the king; and his visitor went on, ‘Your majesty knows how to let your mind thus travel through the illimitable, and yet (as compared with this) does it not seem insignificant whether the kingdoms that communicate one with another exist or not?’ The king replies, ‘It does so;’ and Tâi Tsin-zan said, finally, ‘Among those kingdoms, stretching one after another, there is this Wei; in Wei there is this (city of) Liang; and in Liang there is your majesty. Can you make any distinction between yourself, and (the king of that kingdom of) Stupidity?’ To this the king answered, ‘There is no distinction,’ and his visitor went out, while the king remained disconcerted and seemed to have lost himself.

When the visitor was gone, Hui-tsze came in and saw the king, who said, ‘That stranger is a Great man. An (ordinary) sage is not equal to him.’ Hui-tsze replied, ‘If you blow into a flute, there come out its pleasant notes; if you blow into a sword-hilt, there is nothing but a wheezing sound. Yâo and Shun are the subjects of men’s praises, but if you speak of them before Tâi Tsin-zan, there will be but the wheezing sound.’

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Image — The common garden snail Helix aspersa, by Rasbak, via Wikipedia
Story — Chuang Tzu (Zhuangzi), via Nothingistic.org

Walking with Walt Whitman – “Song of Myself – 52”

Walking with Walt Whitman
A daily installment from Leaves of Grass.

~ ❦ ~

“Song of Myself – 52”

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab 
     and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow'd wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.

~ ❦ ~

Leaves of Grass – Wikisource
Image – Walt Whitman, age 35, from the frontispiece to Leaves of Grass, Fulton St., Brooklyn, N.Y., steel engraving by Samuel Hollyer from a lost daguerreotype by Gabriel Harrison. ~ Wikipedia

Notes in Emily Dickinson’s pocket – “Just lost when I was saved!” (Life, 83)

Just lost when I was saved!	
Just felt the world go by!	
Just girt me for the onset with eternity,	
When breath blew back,	
And on the other side
I heard recede the disappointed tide!	
  
Therefore, as one returned, I feel,	
Odd secrets of the line to tell!	
Some sailor, skirting foreign shores,	
Some pale reporter from the awful doors
Before the seal!	
  
Next time, to stay!	
Next time, the things to see	
By ear unheard,	
Unscrutinized by eye.
  
Next time, to tarry,	
While the ages steal,—	
Slow tramp the centuries,	
And the cycles wheel.

 

~  “Tell all the Truth but tell it slant.”  ~
❦
Image of Emily Dickinson – from the daguerreotype taken circa 1848.
Poem – Emily Dickinson. Complete Poems. 1924.

Walking with Walt Whitman – “Song of Myself – 51”

Walking with Walt Whitman
A daily installment from Leaves of Grass.

~ ❦ ~

“Song of Myself – 51”

The past and present wilt—I have fill'd them, emptied them.
And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.

Listener up there! what have you to confide to me?
Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,
(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab.

Who has done his day's work? who will soonest be through with his supper?
Who wishes to walk with me?

Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late?

~ ❦ ~

Leaves of Grass – Wikisource
Image – Walt Whitman, age 35, from the frontispiece to Leaves of Grass, Fulton St., Brooklyn, N.Y., steel engraving by Samuel Hollyer from a lost daguerreotype by Gabriel Harrison. ~ Wikipedia

Notes in Emily Dickinson’s pocket – “Musicians wrestle everywhere” (Life, 82)

Musicians wrestle everywhere:	
All day, among the crowded air,	
  I hear the silver strife;	
And—waking long before the dawn—	
Such transport breaks upon the town
  I think it that “new life!”	
  
It is not bird, it has no nest;	
Nor band, in brass and scarlet dressed,	
  Nor tambourine, nor man;	
It is not hymn from pulpit read,—
The morning stars the treble led	
  On time’s first afternoon!	
  
Some say it is the spheres at play!	
Some say that bright majority	
  Of vanished dames and men!
Some think it service in the place	
Where we, with late, celestial face,	
  Please God, shall ascertain!

 

~  “Tell all the Truth but tell it slant.”  ~
❦
Image of Emily Dickinson – from the daguerreotype taken circa 1848.
Poem – Emily Dickinson. Complete Poems. 1924.

Walking with Walt Whitman – “Song of Myself – 50”

Walking with Walt Whitman
A daily installment from Leaves of Grass.

~ ❦ ~

“Song of Myself – 50”

There is that in me—I do not know what it is—but I know it is in me.

Wrench'd and sweaty—calm and cool then my body becomes,
I sleep—I sleep long.

I do not know it—it is without name—it is a word unsaid,
It is not in any dictionary, utterance, symbol.

Something it swings on more than the earth I swing on,
To it the creation is the friend whose embracing awakes me.

Perhaps I might tell more. Outlines! I plead for my brothers and sisters.

Do you see O my brothers and sisters?
It is not chaos or death—it is form, union, plan—it is eternal life—it is 
     Happiness.

~ ❦ ~

Leaves of Grass – Wikisource
Image – Walt Whitman, age 35, from the frontispiece to Leaves of Grass, Fulton St., Brooklyn, N.Y., steel engraving by Samuel Hollyer from a lost daguerreotype by Gabriel Harrison. ~ Wikipedia

Notes in Emily Dickinson’s pocket – “I know that he exists” (Life, 81)

I know that he exists	
Somewhere, in silence.	
He has hid his rare life	
From our gross eyes.	
  
’T is an instant’s play,
’T is a fond ambush,	
Just to make bliss	
Earn her own surprise!	
  
But should the play	
Prove piercing earnest,
Should the glee glaze	
In death’s stiff stare,	
  
Would not the fun	
Look too expensive?	
Would not the jest
Have crawled too far?

 

~  “Tell all the Truth but tell it slant.”  ~
❦
Image of Emily Dickinson – from the daguerreotype taken circa 1848.
Poem – Emily Dickinson. Complete Poems. 1924.