Me: A huge wave!
The ship: Hold on tight!
Me: I feel sick.
The ship: Watch you don’t throw up on my deck.
It is part of human nature to defy the natural phenomena that are attributed to the divine sphere. Gilgamesh tried to reach eternal life via the Waters of Death. Thus began the navigation vitae, the metaphorical water-life-ship connection, which Hans Blumenberg called the nautical life metaphor. Are Ulysses’ odysseys anything more than the titillating of the gods’ palates, an adventurous violation of boundaries, a metaphor’s battle for the collective consciousness? Which mariner was the first to discover himself in the planks of the swaying deck on which he stood, the first to see the image of his own existence: of his perpetual peril, of his unremitting boldness?
AR
Image: Ian Hamilton Finlay (paper work)
No comments:
Post a Comment