Monday, July 28, 2008

Plato on Writing

Plato puts these words in the mouth of Socrates; I have no idea if he is in fact accurately depicting Socrates’s views regarding writing, his own views, or something in between.
If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks. What you have discovered is a recipe not for memory, but for reminder. And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but only its semblance, for by telling them of many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much, while for the most part they know nothing, and as men filled, not with wisdom, but with the conceit of wisdom, they will be a burden to their fellows.
Plato—Phaedrus 275a-b

Saturday, July 12, 2008

John Davies' Weasel Sonnet



According to medieval bestiaries, with help from Pliny the Elder and Isidore of Seville, “the weasel conceives through the mouth and gives birth through the ear”—Isidore, after describing this reproductive miracle, says it is false, but that didn't stop John Davies (16 April 1569 – 8 December 1626) from metaphorically using the weasel's reproductive methods in a sonnet.

John Davies of Hereford, Wittes Pilgrimage, Sonnet 29
Some say the Weezel-masculine doth gender
With the Shee-Weezel only at the Eare
And she her Burden at hir Mouth doth render;
The like (sweet Love) doth in our love appear:
For I (as Masculine) beget in Thee
Love, at the Eare, which thou bearst at the Mouth
And though It came from Hart, and Reynes of me
From the Teeth outward It in thee hath growth.
My Mouth, thine Eares, doth ever chastly use
With putting in hot Seed of active Love;
Which, streight thine Ear conveyeth (like a Sluce)
Into thy Mouth; and, there but Aire doth prove:
Yet Aire is active; but, not like the fire
Then O how should the Sonne be like the Sire?
Via Cliosfolly