Panther Skins and Golden Fleeces

I have, in the past, showed some interest in the Caucuses. I recently finished reading a copy of The Knight in Panther Skin, the Medieval Georgian epic. Here's some assorted thoughts.

Vepkhist'q'aosani ('The Knight in Panther Skin') was written by Shota Rustaveli in the twelfth century, during Georgia's Golden Age under Queen Thamar. I read the 1977 translation by Katharine Vivian published by the Folio Society (as pictured below); the Marjory Wardrop translation from 1912 is available online. Vivian attempts a freer, prose translation than Wardrop; neither is in the rhymed quatrains of Rustaveli. The name of the text is given variously as The Knight in the Panther's Skin, The Man in the Panther's Skin, The Knight in Panther Skin (these differences are not unique to English: 1889 saw Der Mann im Tigerfelle and 1975 Der Ritter im Pantherfell).

What's it about? Rostevan, King of Arabia has no sons, but one daughter, Tinatin. Avtandil is the son of his commander-in-chief and dear to him; Avtandil wishes to marry - and must go about this carefully. When out hunting with Avtandil, Rostevan witnesses a knight in a panther's skin crying by a river - who refuses human contact and attacks those sent to greet him. Rostevan sends searchers after the Knight - eventually including Avtandil. 

That's enough summary to work with for the time being. Why is this an interesting work? What's distinctive about it? Well, without dipping into the Boosterism one sees on the Wikipedia entry or the introduction to the 1977 text, it's neatly structured, with the stories of Avtandil and the Knight (eventually revealed to go by the name Tariel) mirroring each other neatly. There's a great deal of tension between social bonds - the bond of Knightly comradeship, the bond of lovers, the bond of King and Subject, the bond of parent and child, the bond of servant and master. The careful resolving of the plot without breaking these bonds is interesting to watch. 

Beyond that, this is clearly a book from a well-connected society. That the protagonist is an Arab rather than a Georgian is telling; Tariel, it is discovered, is an Indian prince. Characters from 'Khateati' - that is, Cathay - that is, China - appear. There is reference to Egyptians, Greeks, Franks, Russians, Persians - as well as African slaves and sorcerers. Rustaveli's own prologue indicates that this is a 'Persian tale I found in the Georgian tongue' that he has set in verse. One gets a sense of travel and the exotic: it would be reductive but not precisely wrong to refer to it as a mix of Chivalric Romance and the Thousand and One Nights.

It should be noted that Rustaveli's Arabia and India are not depictions of his own time. No particular depiction of the desert appears in his Arabia. India apparently has mullahs who recite the Koran, but who are unmentioned in Arabia. Likewise, the coronation of Princess Tinatin with crown, sceptre and mantle by her father is clearly European. The Epilogue calls these 'strange stories of kings of a far-off ancient time' - so don't obsess overmuch over such details. 

Vivian's introduction paints the poem as Universal in spirit: it does not sit in one tradition or overarching culture. The characters are not explicitly Christian - even if King David and the Apostles are mentioned, there are no prayers to Christ or the Blessed Virgin (apparently the poem was later attacked by the Georgian clergy). Neither are they heathens: a spirit of general monotheism suffuses things, with the sun as a symbol of the one God. Avtandil finds himself praying to the seven stars of the medieval heavens. Twelfth-century Georgia (which had been Christian before there even formally was a Georgia) had expanded under David IV (Great-grandfather of Thamar) to stretch from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea at Baku - capturing much land that had previously been Islamic, including the present-day capital, Tbilisi. It is not a stretch to associate Rustaveli with knowledge of a variety of religious traditions.

Speaking of Thamar, there are a number of redoubtable princesses in The Knight with the Panther Skin. More than in any work of courtly love? Perhaps not, but Tinatin's aforementioned coronation is a clear  reference to female royal power and position (however devoted she may be to her father). Together with passages in the prologue and epilogue, the shadow of Thamar lies heavy on this work.

Enough of that. A few things I wish to glean from all this.

Shota Rustaveli, apparently.

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I've been interested before in historical or alternate names for the planets which can be used for a bit of quick worldbuilding when you can't really be asked to make up an entire new solar system. As I said above, Avtandil finds himself invoking the seven heavens of medieval cosmology (the planets as far as Saturn, plus the moon and sun).

Anyway these are named below, together with a brief extract from Vivian's text. The same section from the Wardrop translation is here.

Zual, whose nature is calamity - Saturn
Mushtar, supreme judge and arbitrator between heart and heart - Jupiter
Marikh the warrior and avenger - Mars
Aspiroz the fair - Venus (Hesperus)
Otarid - Mercury

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The Terrae Vertebrae setting from which Punth was spawned had as a premise that each state in Vertebraea would be based on some medieval epic. I think I've said before that I wouldn't mind introducing some sort of mountain kingdom along with the rest of Punth's neighbours. Well, here's an obvious opportunity.

Marikylo, the Kingdom of the Eight Vales

In the mountains of the Spine of the World, there are the dwarfholds, the great peaks and plateaus only occupied by that stubborn, hardy and independent folk. But in the densest region of the mountain range, there are a string of valleys that have been the home of an ancient folk, who migrated there centuries before the Nirvanite empire ever rose. Marikylo.

Eight high but sunny valleys are joined by passes worn by centuries of use. At each of the handful of passes, a fortress lies: the High Keeps. These are in the gift of the King of Marikylo. Most of the nobility hold a position in their own right, as head of a clan or possessors of valuable estates - but the rank of Castellan indicates a greater trust, to say nothing of greater powers and privileges. Of course, not all High Keeps are alike. Some connection regions in the vales so long settled and so long loyal that the Castellan has very little in the way of active duties: these are regarded as a next to a sinecure. 

Others abut restive regions or passes to the outside world or are the sites of contact with the High Mountain Dwarves - these require a surer hand. The principal division among the elites, then,  is between those families that rely on Royal patronage and the profession of arms - the Panthers - and the stockrearers and farmers - the Rams. Naturally, ancient history and memory of autonomy as a petty kingdom animate a number of other interesting feuds.

How do the Mariklyne live? From the mountain herds of sheep - known for producing a very fine cloth - they take wool, milk and meat. In the sheltered, warm valleys they have citrus groves and vineyards. The Dwarves are glad to have an agricultural trade partner on hand and produce ironware for Marikylo. There is trade and carriage of items across the mountains - and here the Mariklyne prosper.

Marikylo lies between Nirvanite and Talliz and Punth: it has connections to Kapelleron lords and Ka-Punth tribes, to Fahflund merchant houses, to Talliz Boyar families. If you need to get something across the mountains in a hurry, you will be dealing with Marikylo. The necessity of trade and the security of their surroundings has produced a welcoming culture - so long as the High Keeps stand. It is said that Marikylo produces three things in abundance - Mountaineers, Middlemen and Masters (that is, scholars).

Of course, other things can be found in the mountains than Dwarves. Witches - Dragons - the bleached skeletons of ancient armies that still clutch antique swords. There are places where even the hardiest shepherd will not take his flocks. 

Salopian Youth

Stepping forward from the last such post, I mentioned Dorothy L Sayers. I suspect it is in the climax of one of her novels (Strong Poison) that I first heard and remembered a line from Housman's Shropshire Lad. This time, it did make it into the BBC Radio version - but I shall try to avoid sounding too much like Ian Carmichael. 

I've picked out two entries from A Shropshire Lad: XXXIV and LXII. XXXIV is shorter and, not just in subject matter, perhaps the most Kiplingesque. LXII's combination of classical reference, melancholy, bitter humour and rustic boozing is particularly memorable. 

Enjoy.

Marchbanks at the Breakfast-Table

Recent reading has included The Papers of Samuel Marchbanks, by Robertson Davies (1913- 1995) and The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes* (1809 - 1894). Both are the reported (comic) speech or writings of a slightly overbearing man of letters in their specific locale. Both were initially published in newspapers or periodicals; Autocrat in The Atlantic Monthly (as it then was) in 1857-58 and Marchbanks in the Peterborough Examiner (Peterborough in the Province of Ontario) in 1942. Holmes merely wrote for The Atlantic; Davies held various positions at the Examiner - both authors seem to have realised the possibilities of collection into a book fairly promptly.

Robertson Davies, 1982, according to Wikipedia.

A word on format and content: The Autocrat is a series of monthly columns collected into a volume. The Papers of Samuel Marchbanks (1986) contains The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (1947, compiling weekly diary material from 1945-46), The Table-Talk of Samuel Marchbanks (1949, collecting observations of Marchbanks organised as if they were all uttered at a seven-course formal dinner) and Marchbanks' Garland (1986, made up from material in Samuel Marchbanks' Almanack, 1967, which was apparently organised by signs of the Zodiac. The Garland contains letters and diary entries alike). Davies has continued the metafictional game in Papers by presenting himself as editor, making extensive footnotes contextualising or commenting on material from the 1940s and even preparing an introduction with an aged but still unmistakable Marchbanks. 

This isn't quite a review, of course, merely a collection of thoughts. Still, I shall say that while I enjoy both, they work in different ways. They are commenting on different times with different mores. A different tone, of course: the unmistakably Yankee voice of Holmes is different to the Canadian Davies (as to which sort of Canadian - "I am the usual Canadian cocktail: Welsh, Scots, quite a bit of Dutch, a dash of Red Indian, but no English. And all, of course, dominated by the old Empire Loyalist bias." From The Paris Review's Art of Fiction interview series, No. 107, published Spring 1989). The poetic Holmes is distinct from the playwright and novelist Davies; the audience of the Autocrat are largely more gracious than those confronted by the spiky Marchbanks - who is cantankerous and a little fogeyish, where the Autocrat is domineering but gracious.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

I am reading both from books, of course, though The Autocrat may be found online. It would be interesting to see both in their original periodical context. If no-one has done so already, a coffee-table book of high quality pictures of chapters of (say) David Copperfield or The Three Musketeers as originally serialised and presented next to adverts or columns on goodness knows what else would be a fine thing. 

Rating or scoring either The Autocrat or The Papers is fairly pointless, to my mind, but I have taken to reading a chapter of The Autocrat in the early afternoon and a dozen pages of Marchbanks before bed. Davies was more the journalist. Indeed, he does seem to have played to the crowd more - a frequent theme of The Diary (later Marchbanks deals with slightly more literary material) is the struggles of Marchbanks with his stove and snow-shovelling - something with which, I take it, householders of Ontario in the 1940s could sympathise. 

Indeed, Davies does seem to have used Marchbanks as a means to vent. Marchbanks is more independent and pricklier than I think he could have been, either as editor of the Examiner or as Master of Massey College (discussed previously here). Of course, Marchbanks has a set of experiences and background roughly identical to Davies. Wish fulfilment? Well, Marchbanks doesn't have a beautiful wife, or a series of elaborate affairs (could one have even eluded to such in the Peterborough Examiner?) or a sumptuous lifestyle. But perhaps. 

It's interesting seeing Davies's footnotes to Marchbanks's material in The Papers. This was in 1986; Davies was in his seventies. Some elements are toned down, some are made more explicit. His introduction even discusses an outlandish fetish enjoyed by Marchbanks. But there's a definitely fogeyish element to it, particularly in Davies commenting on a proclamation of Marchbanks frequently to the effect of 'This has, of course, only continued and become more so, such that...." 

Has the cosmopolitan, loosely liberal Davies been suborned by his grouchy alter ego? You will find people saying that this happened to Evelyn Waugh, as if to say: 'How dare the author of Vile Bodies become a Catholic and try to live as a country squire!' Well, I believe that Waugh was probably more embittered and splenetic than Davies, but even Waugh had some self-awareness - witness his later novel, The Ordeal of Gilbert Penfold, dealing with the hallucinations and paranoia of an elderly writer following a BBC interview (written not so long after Waugh's own BBC interview....). So I shall say that Davies is probably being a little indulgent, but I am not sure that this is a literary demerit. 

It occurs to me in writing this that columns of this kind have vanished - as far as I know from newspapers and periodicals. Humorous columns and comment remain, but generally at least nominally about something. If the desire for this sort of humour persists - and I think it does - where did it go? Into comedy as an independent entity, I suppose - the sitcom and the panel show. Ed Reardon's Week springs to mind. More specifically, I suspect that the most exact parallel to the Autocrat and Marchbanks might be online. The Blogger working under a nom-de-plume is a familiar enough presence. But the comic twists, the colourful griping, the conversations with fictional correspondents or sparring partners**, the chance to present yourself or an alter ego as rather neater and wittier - and dominating more conversations than you actually are - surely this is familiar? "In the future, we will all be The Autocrat for fifteen minutes." Of course, I suspect there is more self-discipline involved in creating and sustaining something like The Autocrat or Marchbanks than the common or garden Twitter account, which makes them worth revisiting. 

Anyway, a few items gleaned from The Autocrat and The Papers for your use and enjoyment.

Names of Samuel Marchbanks' correspondents include:

1. Haubergeon Hydra
2. Raymond Cataplasm, MD, FRCP
3. Minerva Hawser
4. Amyas Pilgarlic
5. Cicero Forcemeat
6. Mrs Kedijah Scissorbill
7. The Rev'd Simon Goaste
8. Apollo Fishhorn
9. Nancy Frisgig
10. Richard 'Dick' Dandiprat

Assorted encounters from the Breakfast-Table:

1. Frontiersman and woodsmen have taken to using knives patterned in replica of the short swords of an ancient empire. What could this portend?
2. A woman on a street-corner with a permanent lob-sided smile holds forth on the difference between the Albino Blonde and the Leonine Blonde.
3. You can hear the ticking of your own brain, the constant whirring of the human clockwork. What will make this stop? What will deafen the noise? Who has done this to you?
4. A group of pasty scholars have set up a sparring ring on the common. Their efforts to advance themselves in the Sweet Science appear sincere, but pitifully inexpert.
5. A wild-eyed gentleman starts explaining the process of divine revelation to you in terms of the pearly spiralling chambers of an infinite nautilus shell. It is unclear whether you are going in to the centre of the shell (and the heart of all things) or out into progressively larger and more wondrous spaces. Perhaps both.
6. Addressing an Assembly meeting, a veteran recently elected Consul stumbles over his words and uses some less than statesman-like expressions. His audience react with muted distaste to this, but are clearly willing to forgive him much on account of his scars. 

*Not to be confused with his son, the legal scholar and judge Oliver Wendell "You sure as shootin' better not be shouting fire in a crowded theatre down there," Holmes Jr.

**Who may not necessarily be Strawmen or Steelmen or what have you.

Faufreluches: Vorontsov at Bay

Faufreluches: the rigid rule of class distinction enforced by the Imperium. 

'A place for every man and every man in his place'.

I'm calling this little series after the above concept from Dune because I've never been able to chase down its derivation. Initially, I put forward a number of ideas about where the appeal of the strand of science fiction sometimes called 'Feudal Future' lies. I closed by asking:

2) Having assembled such a list can I devise, if not the greatest Feudal Future, at least an adequate one?

Then I sketched an outline of a Feudal Future, centring on the suspended imperial government of the Thousand-Day Regency. Now to apply that to a specific case within that future.

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The Scene

ZHIV-MOROZ. A planet around the star Thuban. A cold world, like a fallen stick of chalk crushed by a hobnailed boot. Snowy plains and mountains are slit through by abyssal black crevasse-seas. 

Humanity clings to this hostile world  - for what reason? For whom? Zhiv-Moroz produces little in the way of foodstuffs; the metal and raw materials it produces are sufficient for domestic use and far too costly in transportation to extract at scale. The craftsmen of Zhivkone may be known for their elegant carriage-work, but even in the best of times this is insufficient to sustain that city at a profit. 

The answer lies in the trees. The vast stretches of woodland, where the Thuban Conifer grows. The resin of the conifer is lightly sensitive to psychic energy - a unique property, as near as can be told. The witchfinders of the Pastorate have many methods, to be sure - but few as sure as the resin. The orderlies of the Office of Detection make shallow cuts in their palms and coat them in the resin. Passing their hands in ritual gestures, they can feel the pull on the resin and focus the zone of sensitivity. Thus they are known as the Lacquered, or the Shellacked. 

The resin is the commodity that allows Zhiv-Moroz to prosper. It is gathered by tappers, made stocky by their heavy coats and carrying harnesses. They flood out of railheads for fortnights in the up-country workstations. But the keeping of the trees, the protection of the woods - this is the part of the Thub'nak Nomad Hosts.

Following the snow-bison and the Moroz deer, they are a class apart from the Tapper Guilds. Maintaining their privileges over the wilderness, they will pursue the trespassing lumberjack as much due to outrage at his violation of their land as to maintain the plantations of Thuban conifers and protect the profits the resin brings. They accept payment only in goods: high-energy fuels,  tools and spares for their snow-cruisers, livestock for their herds, ammunition for their antique rifles. 

Onto Zhiv-Moroz, into its hunched and shivering cities, its lonely and echoing forests, its isolated Pastorate hermitages and Stadtholder survey towers - onto this cold pebble in the void, who is it that is coming?

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The Overture

The House of Vorontsov is a line of Magnates that are dated to the first years of the Regency. They are Earls of Mizar and Alcor. Twenty times they have held a Principal Office in the Siegneuria; a hundred times recognised as a caucus spokesman. They are almost all dead.

In Terren, City of Half-Moon Plazas, the Citadel is a fortified necropolis. In the Fortress of Gaheris, never again will a cadet lift a lance in honour of the Paladin. No-one dances in the gardens of Five-Beacon House. A tailored plague has taken them all: an assassination fifty years in the making. 

Eduige Vorontsov was Viscountess St Moab, perhaps fifth in the line of inheritance. When House Vorontsov was granted fiefdom of Zhiv-Moroz, it was an honour, and the fruitition of plans she herself had furthered. The opportunity to be installed as Governor of that distant, famed world was one she eagerly grasped. Now news of a world in mourning reaches her in transit at the Aldebaran Mews, and she knows that cold Zhiv-Moroz will be her sanctuary and her tomb.

On distant ancient Terra, her great-uncle Ippolyte knows that he is compromised, knows that his far-off home will fall into Provincial Administration, plaything of Secretariat and Schematician. The Vorontsov voice on the Siegneuria, he sees his death in every shadow, but must play out his hand as long as he can.

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The Cast

Eduige Vorontsov: The Countess Vorontsov. Younger than you think; younger than she thinks. The last Vorontsov. A mix of the ambitious and the vindictive. However alien the Governor's Palace in Zhivkone feels, her path will lead her to places stranger still. 

Achilla, Last Captain of the Nibelungs:  Pale, near-hairless, squat, cynical, perceptive. A Janissary, last of his kind. Achilla fills the role of Inspector-General of the Vorontsov Forces and tactician. 

Isolde of the Hôtel Fomalhaut: As winning as only a Glossatrix can be, and as loyal as the strictures of her order permit. Chamberlain and Advisor to Eduige Vorontsov. 

Ippolyte Vorontsov: Holding the title Baron Vorontsov of Sixvales. Old, sustained by the constant cycle of Terran court life. Highly worried about Eduige.

Sarq Trianon: Confidential Clark to Ippolyte Vorontsov. As trustworthy as anyone on Terra at all connected to the Siegneuria. 

Gaspard Tamerlano: Margrave of the industrial world Salammbo. Wealthy, unscrupulous, generous with everything except power. Resents the prominence of Vorontsov in the Siegneuria and on Zhiv-Moroz alike. 

Gariballad Tamerlano: Lord of the Outer Ring; heir and chief enforcer of Gaspard Tamerlano.

Eustazia Caffrez: Spymaster to House Tamerlano. A disgraced officer of the Secretariat. 

Argante d'Akunin: Fifth-Level Director; Schematician with a remit including the Thuban System. Known to be acquainted with Gaspard Tamerlano. Provider of five-year plans and armoured trains to the people of Zhiv-Moroz.

The Cohort Choleric: Reputed as pitiless and mercenary, even by Janissary standards. Known to favour the use of single-edged hacking blades.

Guildmaster Passek: Possessing the mastery of a planet's industry, he still has the scope of a Beancounter. Dwells in Zhivkone; knows all too well the life outside. 

Stanislas Storkov: Resin Assessor and Professional agitator in the pay of House Tamerlano. 

The Host of the Western Scarp: A Thub'nak Nomad group, known as some of the least biddable rangers. 

Ruslan: Current hetman of the Host of the Western Scarp. Older than he thinks. 

Almira Chapuys: Stadtholder-General of Zhiv-Moroz. An eccentric among Stadtholders; a rare diplomatic link with the Thub'nak.

Leodegar: Arch-Pastor of Smolgrod and Metropolite of Thuban. Trained as a preacher, expected to act as an aide to an industrial process.

Tancred, Duke of Omnium: Chair of the Signeuria, Honorary Member of the College of Martyrs, Marshal of the Left. Powerful, so long as he is quiet. 

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Other Notes:

• Again, no pictures.
• House Vorontsov bears the symbol of a rearing chestnut horse, with a human skull for a head and armoured forelegs. This is shown on a lozenge of split Prussian Blue and white. (Variations exist.)
• House Tamerlano bears the symbol of a green snake wound about a gauntlet, shown on a roundel of burnt orange and white. (Variations exist.)
• The premise of the above started as Dune but with Dr Zhivago instead of Lawrence of Arabia, something I've mooted before. I hope the setting of the Thousand-Day Regency, as well as other suggested changes, have made this a little less blatant.
• Presumably some Nomad Hosts act as typical cavalry, but maintain snowcruisers for high-value transport. 
• The Kharkovchanka is not a Nomad Snowcruiser, but it could be an ancestor. 

Product Placement

I enjoy the work of Dorothy L Sayers. She is known best as an author of detective stories, but she also wrote plays, translated Dante and created advertisements - as, for instance, 'Guinness is Good for You!'

Anyway, her novel Murder Must Advertise contains two montage-like sequences of advertising slogans. The adaptations of Murder (BBC Radio and Television, both with Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter Wimsey) leave these out - which is a shame, as I rather think they have a good rhythm. So I have recorded both - please see below.

Enjoy.