The Leafy Seadragon, Phycodurus eques, from southern Australia (Wikipedia)
Post-Performative Post-Scriptum
Wikipedia says: “The generic name is derived from the Ancient Greek words φῦκος (phûkos) ‘seaweed’, and δέρμα (dérma) ‘skin’.” That’s obviously wrong for dérma, but I can’t find a definitive etymology.
Die Ros’ ist ohn warumb; sie blühet weil sie blühet. — Angelus Silesius (1624-77)
La rosa es sin porqué; florece porque florece — Borges’ translation
La rose est sans pourquoi ; elle fleurit parce qu’elle fleurit.
La rosa è senza perché; fiorisce perché fiorisce.
De roos is zonder waarom; zij bloeit omdat zij bloeit.
الوَرْدَةُ بلا لِمَ؛ تَزْهُو لأنَّها تَزْهُو.
玫瑰无问缘由，只因绽放而绽放。
薔薇は「なぜ」を持たない。ただ咲くから咲く。
ვარდს „რატომ“ არ გააჩნია; ის ყვავის, რადგან ყვავის.
Rosa est sine cur; floret quia floret.
Τὸ ῥόδον ἄνευ τοῦ διὰ τί· ἀνθεῖ, ὅτι ἀνθεῖ.
पुष्पं निर्हेतुकम्; पुष्पति यतः पुष्पति।
The rose is without a Why: it blooms because it blooms.
The sea, to be sure, is a large department; and that is how it succeeded in attracting Swinburne’s attention; for he seldom noticed any object of external nature unless it was very large, very brilliant, or very violently coloured. But the sea as an object of poetry is somewhat barren. Those poets who have a true eye for nature and a sure pen for describing it, spend few words describing the sea; and their few words describe it better than Swinburne’s thousands. It is historically certain that he had seen the sea, but if it were not, it could not with certainty have been inferred from his descriptions: they might have been written by a man who had never been outside Warwickshire. Descriptions of nature equally accurate, though not equally eloquent, have actually been composed by persons blind from their birth, merely by combining anew the words and phrases which they have had read to them from books. When Swinburne writes thus –
And the night was alive and anhungered of life as a tiger from toils cast free:
And a rapture of rage made joyous the spirit and strength of the soul of the sea.
All the weight of the wind bore down on it, freighted with death for fraught:
And the keen waves kindled and quickened as things transfigured or things distraught.
And madness fell on them laughing and leaping; and madness came on the wind:
And the might and the light and the darkness of storm were as storm in the heart of Ind.
Such glory, such terror, such passion, as lighten and harrow the far fierce East,
Rang, shone, spake, shuddered around us: the night was an altar with death for priest –
it would be cruel to set against such a passage a single line of Tennyson’s or a single epithet of Shakespeare’s: I take instead a snatch of verse whose author few of you know and most of you never heard of:
Hurry me, Nymphs, O, hurry me
Far above the grovelling sea,
Which, with blind weakness and bass roar
Casting his white age on the shore,
Wallows along that slimy floor;
With his wide-spread webbèd hands
Seeking to climb the level sands,
But rejected still to rave
Alive in his uncovered grave.[From George Darley’s “Nepenthe” (1835)]
Admirers of the sea may call that a lampoon or a caricature, but they cannot deny that it is life-like: the man who wrote it had seen the sea, and the man who reads it sees the sea again.
• Poems and Brickbats — A.E. Housman on A.C. Swinburne
A word inherited from Germanic.
Cognate with Old Frisian finger, Old Saxon fingar (Middle Low German finger), Old Dutch fingar (Middle Dutch, Dutch vinger), Old High German fingar (Middle High German vinger, German Finger), Old Icelandic fingr, Old Swedish finger (Swedish finger), Old Danish fingær (Danish finger), Gothic figgrs.
Further etymology uncertain, perhaps < a suffixed form of the Indo-European base of five adj., cognate with Old Frisian fīf (West Frisian fiif), Old Saxon fīf (Middle Low German vīf), Old Dutch fīf (Middle Dutch, Dutch vijf), Old High German fimf, finf, funf (Middle High German vünf, German fünf (although this presents semantic difficulties with regard to the function of the suffix), or perhaps < a suffixed form of the Indo-European base of fang v., Old English fón, reduplicated strong verb corresponding to Old Frisian fâ, Old Saxon fâhan, Old High German fâhan (Middle High German vâhen, modern German (poet) fahen), Old Norse fá (although this presents phonological difficulties).
Compare fist n., Old English fýst strong feminine corresponds to Old Frisian fêst, Middle Low German fûst (Dutch vuist), Old High German fûst (Middle High German vûst, modern German Faust) < West Germanic *fûsti.
A word inherited from Germanic.
Old English fýst strong feminine corresponds to Old Frisian fêst, Middle Low German fûst (Dutch vuist), Old High German fûst (Middle High German vûst, modern German Faust) < West Germanic *fûsti.
By some scholars this is referred to an Old Germanic form *fûhsti-z, *funhsti-z < pre-Germanic *pṇqstis (whence Old Church Slavonic pęstĭ of same meaning), < ablaut-variant of *penqe, five adj. & n., cognate with Old Frisian fīf (West Frisian fiif), Old Saxon fīf (Middle Low German vīf), Old Dutch fīf (Middle Dutch, Dutch vijf), Old High German fimf, finf, funf (Middle High German vünf).
• from the Oxford English Dictionary
Satanas
To Jorge Santayana
ECCE! Princeps infernorum,
Rex veneficus amorum
Vilium et mortiferorum,
Ecce! regnat Lucifer:
Animis qui dominatur,
Quibus coelum spoliatur;
Qui malignus bona fatur,
Cor corrumpens suaviter.
Fructus profert; inest cinis:
Profert flores plenos spinis:
Vitae eius mors est finis:
Crux est eius requies.
Qualis illic apparebit
Cruciatus, et manebit!
Quantas ista quot habebit
Mors amaritudines!
Iuventutis quam formosa
Floret inter rosas rosa!
Venit autem vitiosa
Species infamiae:
Veniunt crudeles visus,
Voces simulati risus;
Et inutilis fit nisus
Flebilis laetitae.
Quanto vitium splendescit,
Tanto anima nigrescit;
Tanto tandem cor marcescit,
Per peccata dulcia.
Gaudens mundi Princeps mali
Utitur veneno tali,
Voluptate Avernali;
0 mellita vitia!
Gaudet Princeps huius mundi
Videns animam confundi;
Cordis amat moribundi
Aspectare proelium.
Vana tentat, vana quaerens,
Cor anhelum, frustra moerens;
Angit animae inhaerens
Flamma cor miserrimum.
Gaudet Rector tenebrarum
Immolare cor amarum;
Satiare furiarum
Rex sorores avidas.
Vae! non stabit in aeternum
Regnum, ait Rex, infernum:
Sed, dum veniat Supernum,
Dabo vobis victimas.
• Lionel Johnson (1867-1902), text courtesy Laudator Temporis Acti
• ὁ Ἡράκλειτός φησι τοῖς ἐγρηγορόσιν ἕνα καὶ κοινὸν κόσμον εἶναι τῶν δὲ κοιμωμένων ἕκαστον εἰς ἴδιον ἀποστρέφεσθαι. — Σέξτος Ἐμπειρικός, Πρὸς μαθηματικούς
• • Heraclitus said that for the waking is one common world, but the sleeping turn aside each into a world of his own. — Sextus Empiricus, fl. 150 A.D., Adversus Mathematicos / Against the Mathematicians (or: Against the Professors), VII. 129
Post-Performative Post-Scriptum
Κοινόκοσμος, Koinokosmos, “common-world”, “shared cosmos” ← κοινός, koinós, “common”, “shared” + κόσμος, kosmos, “world”, “order”, “universe”; καὶ, kai, “and”; Κωματόκοσμοι, Kōmatokosmoi, “sleep-worlds” ← Greek κῶμα, kôma, “deep sleep” + κόσμος, kosmos
• Μεστὰ δὲ πάντα σημείων καὶ σοφός τις ὁ μαθὼν ἐξ ἄλλου ἄλλο. — Πλωτῖνος, Ἐννεάδες Βʹ.γʹ.ζʹ
• • “All teems with symbol; the wise man is he who in any one thing can learn of another.” — Plotinus, Ennead II. 3. 7
THE RUSSO-TURKISH WAR
WAR harms all ranks, all arts, all crafts appal;
At Mars’ harsh blast arch, rampart, altar fall!
Ah! hard as adamant a braggart Czar
Arms vassal-swarms, and fans a fatal war!
Rampant at that bad call, a Vandal band
Harass, and harm, and ransack Wallach-land.
A Tartar phalanx Balkan’s scarp hath past,
And Allah’s standard falls, alas! at last.
THE FALL OF EVE
EVE, Eden’s empress, needs defended be;
The Serpent greets her when she seeks the tree.
Serene she sees the speckled tempter creep;
Gentle he seems — perverted schemer deep —
Yet endless pretexts, ever fresh, prefers,
Vervetts her senses, revers when she errs.
Sneers when she weeps, regrets, repents she fell,
Then, deep-revenged, reseeks the nether Hell!
THE APPROACH OF EVENING
IDLING I sit in this mild twilight dim.
Whilst birds, in wild swift vigils, circling skim.
Light wings in sighing sink, till, rising bright.
Night’s Virgin Pilgrim swims in vivid light.
INCONTROVERTIBLE FACTS
NO monk too good to rob, or cog, or plot.
No fool so gross to bolt Scotch collops hot.
From Donjon tops no Oronooko rolls.
Logwood, not lotos, floods Oporto’s bowls.
Troops of old tosspots oft to sot consort.
Box tops our schoolboys, too, do flog for sport.
No cool monsoons blow oft on Oxford dons,
Orthodox, jog-trot, book-worm Solomons!
Bold Ostrogoths of ghosts no horror show.
On London shop-fronts no hop-blossoms grow.
To crocks of gold no Dodo looks for food.
On soft cloth footstools no old fox doth brood.
Long storm-tost sloops forlorn do work to port.
Rooks do not roost on spoons, nor woodcocks snort.
Nor dog on snowdrop or on coltsfoot rolls.
Nor common frog concocts long protocols.
PHILOSOPHY
DULL humdrum murmurs lull, but hubbub stuns.
Lucullus snuffs up musk, mundungus shuns.
Puss purrs, buds burst, bucks butt, luck turns up trumps;
But full cups, hurtful, spur up unjust thumps.
• from Literary Frivolities, Fancies, Follies and Frolics compiled by by William T. Dobson (1880)
„Soweit wir erkennen können, besteht der einzige Zweck der menschlichen Existenz darin, ein Licht in der Dunkelheit des bloßen Seins zu entzünden.“ — Carl Jung (1875-1961)
• “As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.”
Clark Ashton Smith and some ferns in 1958 (Eldritch Dark)
I, too, am capable of observation; but I am far happier when I create everything in a story, including the milieu. This is why I do my best in work like “Satrampa Zeiros”. Maybe I haven’t enough love for, or interest in, real places to invest them with the atmosphere that I achieve in something purely imaginary. […] As for the problem of phantasy, my own standpoint is that there is absolutely no justification for literature unless it serves to release the imagination from the bounds of everyday life. I have undergone a complete revulsion against the purely realistic school, including the French, and can no longer stomach even Anatole France. […] Well, I must put a scientific — or at least a pseudo-scientific — curb on my fancy if I am to sell anything. — Clark Ashton Smith, letter to H.P. Lovecraft, 9th January 1930
• The Wine of Words: Valorizing the Verbiviniculture of Clark Ashton Smith
Overlord In Terms of Core Issues Around Maximal Engagement with Key Notions of the Über-Feral 
