LLT 180 Lecture 7 1. I'm sorry to say, before we start class -- I'm not condoning this behavior, but

Transcription

1 LLT 180 Lecture 7 1 I'm sorry to say, before we start class -- I'm not condoning this behavior, but sometimes you learn from misbehavior and people being nice to you. Another thing besides a suit of armor you'll see hanging in my office -- I don't know if any of you have ever seen those green dinosaurs at Sinclair Gasoline Company which has long been out of business used to have. There are still Sinclair stations? Is there really? Well anyway, when I was in high school, just after dinosaurs ceased to exist, they first started a big promotion with these dinosaurs. Actually it was the first time I taught LLT 180. Somehow we got into this story and I was talking about what a bad child I was. But actually, we had dropped off our dates one night and my girlfriend had said she really wanted one of these dinosaurs. And so we figured, "Well, we'll go get one." And so a couple of friends and I went off -- now, this is exceedingly dull. There was a gas station right opposite -- I grew up on Long Island -- right opposite a Nassau County Police Substation. And so we went traipsing out -- it was about 2 o'clock in the morning -- and we nabbed the dinosaur, and we're going back around the station, and we hear, "Against the wall!" And you'd go, "Gol, you know." And so this sergeant -- these police had been watching us and they came up and frisked us. And we went -- put our hands up like this and the dinosaur fell on the ground. And the sergeant started laughing and he said, "You idiots." He said, you know, "You could've gotten in real trouble or something, you know." And so he talked to us and let us go. So I was talking about this in class and someplace some students found one. So there's now -- and they gave it to me all these years later. So he's hanging in my office

2 LLT 180 Lecture 7 2 as kind of a reminder about what a bad child I was. Anyway, we're supposed to be learning good children were supposed to be like Wart, not like Kay. Though I wasn't like Kay. I just had fun. It's Christmas night. This is a fairly romantic world we have here in that the sun is shining or the nights are clear. The weather's generally good. About the only time we saw rain was when rain was necessary so Wart would be trapped inside and have to be changed into something or see education. And so everyone's coming to dinner. Unlike the movie Guess Who, here everyone's coming to dinner. And the view of the times is what? Basically -- I don't know if this pen's gonna make it through class; I'll have to be kind to it -- they're happy, they're good times. Nothing particularly significant goes on in this chapter except we see kind of an overview of tradition or what takes place every year, and that life is not as bad as people may depict at this particular time. As we start up with the boar hunting in Chapter 16, again there was obviously something to be learned in here. Some of this is still more -- kind of a slice of life, a look at the time. One of the things I think we see -- boar hunting is described as fun, and one of the things I get out of this is that this is more like you gave the deer a rifle. This is more like egalitarian hunting. You have to be on foot, you have to do all these things, and the boar has a pretty good chance at you. In other words, you might get the boar but the boar might get you, too. And so some people think it's fun. Wart's kind of excited. Robin Hood's good at this and Sir Ector, but then we have Pellinore and Pellinore's supposed to be this great

3 LLT 180 Lecture 7 3 questing guy who's after Beast Glatisant and what does he do? He hangs back with the villagers, you know. He's like totally -- like, "Oh, danger," you know. "I'm outta here." And that's where Kay is, too. So we see people kind of being true to how they had been depicted. So we really have Sir Ector, Sir Grummore, Wart, Robin Hood, and of course the king's huntsmen in one group and we have Pellinore and Kay in other group. And we just kind of have to keep asking, "Well, what's the deal with Kay?" I did mention, to try to get even with you -- I guess it was right at the beginning of this chapter and then they mentioned again what Boxing Day was or it's in the next chapter. It does come up and did we explain that? Boxing Day is -- we said where it was celebrated. Boxing Day is the first day after Christmas and it's a different time. When I was growing up it was tradition -- I know my parents always gave the postman, the milkman, the garbageman -- they gave all these people money at Christmas. They left cards for all of them, they gave gifts to all these people for their service, whatever -- things we don't do anymore. I mean, evidently, this is why Boxing Day started the first weekday after Christmas. You gave boxes of goodies to the postman and other public employees. It's not important. If you ever get on a game show and you might need to win some money, you picked -- you know, Bizarre Holidays in the British Empire for a hundred dollars or something. Robin -- everybody kind of knows who Robin is. We have -- the hunt takes place, the boar first runs over Sir Grummore to show how there's danger in it. Kay is always hanging to the back. They kill the boar. To me, the important part of this

4 LLT 180 Lecture 7 4 chapter has nothing to do with the boar hunt. The whole boar hunting scene is simply a device so we can bring Beast Glatisant back in. And what's happened to Beast Glatisant? In other words, after the hunt's over, way over on page very important, middle of the page: The spectacle which they came across was one for which they were not prepared. In the middle of a dead gorse bush King Pellinore was sitting, with the tears streaming down his face. In his lap there was an enormous snake's head, which he was patting. At the other end of the snake's head there was a long, lean, yellow body with spots on it. At the end of the body there were some lion's legs which ended in the slots of a hart. So describing the Beast in a much different, less dangerous way. "There, there," the King was saying. "I did not mean to leave you altogether. It was only because I wanted to sleep in a feather bed, just for a bit. I was coming back, honestly I was. Oh, please don't die, Beast, and leave me without any fewmets!" What's happened to the Beast, at the bottom of the page: "Poor creature," said King Pellinore indignantly. "It has pined away, positively pined away, just because there was nobody to take an interest in it." We talked about this earlier in the semester and I likened it to my memory of the video of Peter, Paul and Mary's "Puff the Magic Dragon," with the idea of nourishing your dreams, nourishing your goals. And obviously Pellinore has stop questing and what happened is his dreams have died so they were barely findable. If it'd been

5 LLT 180 Lecture 7 5 longer, they would've disappeared. So what do they do, you know? And one of the things that's funny to me in the book is that people -- you know, whether we're talking about a unicorn or the Beast, this is reality in fiction, you know. People might -- "Oh, yeah. It's the Beast Glatisant. Let's take him home. Let's give him some nourishment. He needs some wine. He needs some beer. Let's take him home and get him back in shape." I think I said last time -- I wrote on the board "childish," and I said they use this word a lot. And it calls into question what is childish and what isn't. I think the context we were talking about that in was that they'd come back with Wart injured and the nurse had told them all to stop behaving in the childish manner they were, that this was -- there was serious stuff to consider like Wart's injuries. And here, on the top of 154, "Feather beds and quarry, indeed; a lot of childish nonsense." So this is Pellinore and what is childish and what isn't. Is questing after some kind of, you know, fictional beast -- is that childish? He seems to be saying no. He's saying leading a normal life, sleeping in a feather bed and hunting boars, that's childish. That pursuing your dreams is not. Question to be asked. Well, we need more education. The questing beast is all right again as we come to Spring. And in a lot of literature we see this reference to this kind of solar cycle. Some people think it's very important in the development of literature. Obviously, the solar cycle has something to do with the celebration of Christian holidays with the idea that Spring -- Spring stands for what? Birth, rebirth. You think of Easter -- you know, even if you grow up like where I did, I even know that if you have two bunnies of the

6 LLT 180 Lecture 7 6 right gender or the opposite genders, in two months you have nine trillion bunnies. What other things do we have as symbols of Easter? Eggs. You know, it's obviously a fertility rite holiday. It's all about birth. In Christianity it's about death and birth. But, of course, in Christianity life is really death and death is life. All right. So it's about birth or rebirth. So it's about birth. Summer is what? This is real simple, folks. Summer -- what happens to corn in the summer? Growth. All right. Fall? Let's put a nice word in here. Well, maturation. Aging sounds -- you know, it comes just too close to home. Maturation. So winter is death. Winter is death. When does winter come? When does winter officially begin? December 21st, I think. Which is what? Winter solstice. What's unique about -- no. What's unique about December 21st? Shortest light day of the year. So in a true sense, when does Spring begin? Yeah, but if you're thinking of the solar cycle -- you know, what kind of symbols do we have at Christmas? When Christianity came into Europe and tried to christianize Europe, what they did is they took Christian holidays and glued 'em on to pagan celebrations to make 'em more acceptable to the pagans, all right? And so what the heck would the pagans be doing in the dead of winter, be doing on December 25th or thereabouts? These people weren't stupid, you know. They'd say -- well really, if you start thinking about it, they'll say, "Hey, the days are getting longer. Spring's coming." And so really, you know, it's a nice symbol that in death -- you know, this works well for Christianity, too -- in death is life, all right? Because it's really at the beginning of winter -- that is, the beginning of spring. So what they used to do up in the northern

7 LLT 180 Lecture 7 7 parts of Europe -- like when the Vikings would decorate their boats with evergreens and carry 'em down to the harbors. Like saying, "Hey," you know, "we want Spring." I've even seen it in Springfield. It's a common custom in Germany when they have framed in a big, tall building, they nail an evergreen to it with the idea that you give the building life. I've actually even seen it done in Springfield. Anyway, it's a beautiful Spring day. We're gonna have more education. And we're never supposed to do anything twice. Twice is bad. I told you I don't really agree with that. He's been a bird. But what did he do? He just got to sit in the muse as a hawk. And he wants to fly. He wants to be able to fly, something that we all think would probably be fun, and so he's gonna go with Archimedes. And so we were told early on when he first was changed into a fish, and I've repeated this when we looked at the ants, that everything has social systems and so you're supposed to learn from these. And we're told very specifically that birds -- different groups of birds are different. But on top of 156 Archimedes says, about line 7, "They are one of the birds that have parliaments, you know, and a social system." And they have laws. And so again, we should learn from these groups. They go on then, again kind of bogged down into, you know, what are the best birds. Archimedes likes pigeons, not because they taste good -- which they do -- but rather because he refers to 'em as being like Quakers, being peace lovers. So our author loves that. And then they talk about language, and this just goes on and on and on. And I think it's -- getting back to that with Robin Hood, Robin would, that everything you read

8 LLT 180 Lecture 7 8 in books you don't necessarily need to believe. That some of the stuff is wrong. Because here you have Merlyn holding forth on how birds have language. And Archimedes -- who, of course, is a bird -- is kind of being ignored. Merlin's saying, you know, "You don't know what you're talking about. You know, I read so-and-so said," and these are all people who are saying these things. Kay -- you know, we've all had friends like this. It's like, "Hello, anybody there?" And at the end of this long conversation about birds -- and he's like, "Oh, you know, birds are kinda cool." I kind of wonder -- we moved just before school started and where we live now is really neat with different kinds of birds, but I do miss where we did live. There were a couple of big families of crows. And there was an interesting article in the Springfield paper -- oh, gosh. It could've been a couple of years ago now. But I didn't know -- I didn't even know anything about crows. I really didn't. But crows are songbirds and crows are -- have extended families and evidently live in the same place their whole lives. And they'll know you. They have all these different sounds. And they said if you go out and talk to crows, that they'll get so that they identify you and will talk back to you. It was a really interesting article. And they said that the problem that people have a bad view of crows is 'cause they're kind of like my St. Bernard puppy. They're omnivorous. They eat anything. And so we go, "Oooo, gross. Oh, look what it's eating now." But birds are interesting. So how does Kay come in? They were talking about how great birds are and Kay comes in and he's just killed a few. And so he's always like out of sync with what's

9 LLT 180 Lecture 7 9 going on in the work. "Hallo," said Kay, opening the door of the afternoon school room. "I'm sorry I am late for the geography lesson. I was trying to get a few small birds with my crossbow. Look, I have killed a thrush." Again, I don't know if he's supposed to be the typical, duh, knight that we want to do away with. Anyway. So we have another transformation. This time he's gonna go with Archimedes and to be transformed he has to eat a dead mouse. I think I'd pass. And he does learn to fly. Archimedes says, way over on page 164, that he has been assigned to take him for his education. And what does Merlyn want? He wants him to become a goose. And so we've seen him become what? A fish, an ant. And so what are we seeing? If we're seeing fish, reptile, bird -- we're kind of following the progression of evolution. All right. So he's moving up the evolutionary scale. And he goes to where it's absolutely flat. Anybody grow up anywhere north on the coast, west or east? Have you ever been to the coast? I won't say the shore. When I say the shore, my wife always picks on me. But then national correspondents will say something about the shore and I'll say, "See. See." Grow up by the coast, you say shore. Down by the shore. Into Florida. Into Florida. High tide, low tide. How much is high tide, low tide? You know, they say, "The tide's coming in" and "The tide is going out." Is it very discernable? How much, a couple of feet? Mainly discernable -- you know, you'll see some difference on the beach. It's mainly whether the garbage is

10 LLT 180 Lecture 7 10 flowing in or flowing out -- the seaweed, the jellyfish. You know, I know waves that reached two and a half, three feet, maybe max -- you know, it doesn't move a lot. The further you move away from the Equator -- you know, I hope this is totally right since all the people will see this -- at least to a certain extent, the greater becomes the tide. So where I grew up on Long Island, our standard tides were eight and a half, nine feet. And so I lived on a street with a private beach and we'd keep our boat more off the beach. And when it was low tide, you could walk out to it because it'd only be in about three or four feet of water. But at high tide you had to swim out to it. We had a dinghy but we never used it. It was cute. It was red and white striped. We spent more time painting the dinghy than we did taking care of the boat. But then we didn't want to use it because it was so cute. But anyway -- so probably most of you have never seen mud flats. Where I grew up, there was a tidal area -- oh, here it is. There were two connected bays by a promontory. And actually, coming from this area, from this point, there was actually a big area that came back through in here up to a fresh water lake that fed into it. And at low tide, this whole area would be a mud flat. I mean, there'd be no water in there at all. You walk along and the clams would spin water up at you and stuff. And so this is the idea: you have these large flatlands. If we had a good map of Europe in here, actually up along the northern coast where Holland and Germany and stuff are, there are islands that are called haligans. And that's actually a word we use in English, too. It's the same word. And at low tide you can walk out to these things. I mean, they're way out. And so I think the biggest tide is somewhere -- is like thirty-

11 LLT 180 Lecture 7 11 seven or thirty-eight feet difference between high tide and low tide. And so when they talk about ships sailing with the tide, that's why. Anyway, it's a long discussion to explain why they're talking about the mud flats, this great flatness, and they're talking about the wind. And so this is like a great void up here. When it becomes daylight, he realizes all these creatures are about him and they're very beautiful creatures. They're the white-fronted geese and they're making ready for flight. Now, the question to ask at the end of this chapter is: Which does Wart like better? Does he like being an ant better or does he like being a goose better, and what do they represent? Immediately -- you know, what was one of the things we read about the ants? They have no joy of life. Why would they, if you remember reading about them? But what do we read immediately here on 166, about 15 lines up, the end of that paragraph: "They had a comradeship, free discipline and joie de vivre." Joy of life. And so all the things already that the ants didn't have. It's kind of a cooperative society. Nobody seems particularly in charge. And a female goose starts advising him when they -- when she realizes he doesn't know what's going on. It's kind of interesting in a funny kind of way that he says, on the top of page 169, "I'm stupid because I'm a human being." And we could kind of carry that further in the work. What can we really expect him to know because he's a human being. He says at the top, "I'm not a goose. I was born as a human. This is my first flight really." She asks what he was sent for and he responds -- he says about line 15, "To

12 LLT 180 Lecture 7 12 learn my education." And his education starts by asking what he had to do. When they were out there feeding, somebody pecked on him to stand sentry and he just kept standing sentry until the female goose tells him what to do. And so the big question here becomes about war, you know. He thinks there must be war, that's why they have sentries. And in her language she doesn't even understand what he's saying. She doesn't understand the words. So she explains to him, on 170, about line 8 -- she says, you know, we have sentries for natural enemies, things that might kill us. She says, about line 8, "These are natural enemies. But what creature could be so low as to go about in bands, to murder others of its own blood?" And the obvious answer is: human beings, that's who. Duh. So obviously we're supposed to be a little self-reflective here. She gives her name -- she gives a name for him so he can kind of disguise who he is. Important point, about two-thirds of the way down: that one of the things that leads to their peaceful -- I don't know if we want to say idyllic; we could say idyllic, perhaps -- society is that there are no boundaries. There are no boundaries. She says -- oh, about 8 lines before the end of that chapter on 170, she says, "Dear me, you are a silly," she said. "There are no boundaries among the geese." "What are boundaries, please?" "Imaginary lines on the earth, I suppose. How can you have boundaries if you fly? Those ants of yours--and the humans too--would have to stop fighting in the end, if they took to the air."

13 LLT 180 Lecture 7 13 Wart keeps saying the same stupid things, you know. "I like fighting," said the Wart. "It is knightly." And what's the response? "Because you're a baby." In other words, you're an idiot. You know, so he's still being educated, all right? We're still writing on it and he needs some more writing. And he's getting information but he's not being reflective. We talk about the nature of time, at the beginning of 19. We've talked about that a little bit before. That the time he's transformed and the experiences he has does not coincide to the amount of time he's gone. So he might be gone for five or six hours in his world, but he experiences six or seven days, or whatever the case may be. Again, whenever we're reading stuff in here, we should be comparing and thinking about how it was in the ant world where there was no individuality. Everything was impersonal. And here, on 171, about line 5, it says, She told him how every White-front was an individual--not governed by laws or leaders. They talk about tides, they talk about mud flats -- I already beat that up. And then the geese go off a-flyin' and they sing. Sounds like old-time country radio. No, just kidding. Actually, I listen to modern country radio. More like rock 'n roll I grew up with and other stuff. What are they like? About two-thirds of the way down on 173, right after it says "A sentimental one was": "Wild and free." So wild -- I think wild here -- not bad children, not children that try to steal dinosaurs from gas stations, but rather wild in the sense of not constrained by laws. Free, you know? And so they are obviously the

14 LLT 180 Lecture 7 14 opposite of ants who have to do the same monotonous thing their whole life. They're migrating. Birds are friendly with one another. And then we had the story about the Admiral who -- we're on page 176. And, you know, these other tales have had fairly simplistic morals and I'm not sure what the moral of this story is supposed to be. Do you remember the story -- it's where one of the Grand Admirals, one of the big leader geese -- kind of been picked, you know, as a leader is captured on this island. And after he's captured, he becomes a leader of -- he takes over leadership of birds on the island and leads the chickens in at night and stuff. And from that time on, everybody avoids that island. It seems one thing you get out of this story is that people who are leaders are easily identifiable, you know. Or maybe there are leaders and followers, and they emerge naturally. The end part of it, Nor did the free wild geese, his sometime followers, ever again settle on the other island--previously a haunt of theirs--from which their captain had been spirited away. I don't know. No one who's free will -- would gladly venture giving up their freedom? Is that -- I don't know. Is that what we're supposed to learn from that? I'm not sure. If you guys have wisdom, you make me look better next time I teach this course. I have no clear view, other than what I said and that's not particularly clear. Questions up to there? Okay. So being a goose is very, very, very, very important. And it's gonna come back later. He's gonna be asked about it later. So now it's six years later -- however, we said good numbers were what? Three,

15 LLT 180 Lecture 7 15 four, seven. So how do we get seven out of this? Well, Merlyn was there for a year, then we skip six years. So actually this is seven years since the beginning. So whatever age the boys were, we can assume -- I guess they're about your ages now, would be my guess. Pellinore is still after the Beast so poor old Pellinore -- he'd been questing seventeen years when we started. This is now seven years later. I don't know how old Pellinore is. He had to be getting old in medieval times. And so he is -- you know, been questing after the Beast for twenty-five years. The boys had grown. How many adventures had Arthur had -- had Wart had? Innumerable. They said he was changed into countless different animals. Somewhere later in here they said he was changed into vegetables and minerals, too. I don't know if you ever played those games and cars like I did as a child. I guess they have TV sets and stuff now. Kay develops his bad development. He's vain, sarcastic, egotistical. And, of course, Merlyn who's living life backwards is looking younger and younger. Kay is to become a knight, Arthur is miserable, and what's Merlyn's wisdom? And so we should be looking for wisdom in here. On page gosh, about two-thirds of the way down the page, the little teeny paragraph starts, "It is lovely, " said the magician. Only fools want to be great." Only fools want to be great. And Arthur kind of ducks. He tells Arthur about what -- how you become a knight and he says, about eight lines from the bottom of the page of 180, one of the things Kay will learn is "the ideals of chivalry such as they are."

16 LLT 180 Lecture 7 16 And so when we try to talk about those ideals, the point that's gonna be made is in this time, in this end-of-the-reign of Luther, they're not very good. They're not being adhered to or we need to, you know, add a few. And so as things are now, things are not good. 181, a very important paragraph about two-thirds of the way down, and it has to do with Arthur's task, if you will. If you think of fairy tales, often there's a task, something that someone's charged to do, to disenchant the castle or to free somebody. And so we could view this task as his quest, as his responsibility. He says what? "If I were to be made a knight...," and he doesn't think that can happen even though Merlyn told him before it's going to,... said the Wart, staring dreamily into the fire, "I should insist on doing my vigil by myself, as Hob does with his hawks, and I should pray to God to let me encounter all the evil in the world in my own person, so that if I conquered there would be none left, and, if I were defeated, I would be the one to suffer for it." Which, of course, is what's gonna happen. So that's very important. He wants to encounter all the evil in the world so that "if I conquered it there would be none left, and, if I were defeated, I would be the one to suffer for it." Merlyn responds what? "That would be extremely presumptuous of you," said Merlyn, "and you would be conquered, and you would suffer for it." Arthur says what? "I shouldn't mind." "Wouldn't you? Wait till it happens and see."

17 LLT 180 Lecture 7 17 So a lot of times in heroic literature we're told what's going to happen. It's kind of like modern theater where [inaudible], where they tried to destroy the illusion and told you so you watched why it happened. And so we know what's going to happen. Why does it happen? Did it have to happen? Is there something to be learned here? No surprises, no surprises. Learning -- learning, gosh -- is always an answer from Merlyn. Arthur -- Wart is again depressed because he's not gonna become a knight and Kay is. And this is going to be the last magic. This is the last magic, the final magic. This is the end of Wart's education. Has to be since we're getting near the end of the book where he's gonna pull the sword from the stone. Duh. And so we see here -- and this is where I was referring to his change into vegetables and minerals, too. I don't know what you learn from being an eggplant, but be that as it may. He says about -- just below the middle of the page on 183 is that? What happens, you scribble on your page "Let me see," said the magician, considering. "We have had a short six years of this, and in that time I think I am right in saying that you have been many kinds of animal, vegetable, mineral, etc." So we didn't see a lot of these things, when he became a rock or, you know, a clam shell or whatever. "Many things in earth, air, fire and water?" So now he's gonna go meet a badger and he says specifically, at the bottom of that page, "This is the last time I shall be able to turn you into anything. All the magic for

18 LLT 180 Lecture 7 18 that sort of thing has been used up, and this will be the end of your education." He then admonishes him. And if you've read to the end, it's very important -- you know, I think I might've mentioned this right at the beginning -- on how he pulls the sword from the stone, how he pulls the sword from the stone. When we see the movie Excaliber, he's just gonna go, "Duh," wander up to it and pull it out because he is divinely ordained or magically ordained to pull the sword from the stone. It's not that simple here. It's not that simple. He says at the top of 184, "Try to remember what you learned." Wart first talks with the hedgehog, who is scared to death of him because badgers eat hedgehogs. And I don't know why this is here except again just kind of silly, comic relief before we get to the morals, our lessons for today. Badger teaches him two things, two things. Those two things are what? You love your home and to dig -- is that how it's stated? Yeah, I guess it is, is to dig. What that's gonna mean is -- since obviously the badger's strength is to be able to dig, is to be true to yourself, you know. Or maybe better stated, be true to your gifts. Would that be a better way to state it since the badger chose certain gifts? I kind of like the badger's view of creation. I think it'd be useful in a -- like in an adult Sunday School class or something just to read this and get people's reactions after they beat you up. But anyway, just where we were on 188, middle of the page, right after the break: "So Merlyn sent you to me," said the badger, "to finish your education. Well, I can only teach you two things--to dig, and love your home. These are the true end of philosophy." So those of you who are Philosophy majors can stop now. You don't need to take any

19 LLT 180 Lecture 7 19 more courses. You can pass the competency test for philosophy because you know the true outcome of all of it. He tours the badger's home. Badger apologizes that he's a bachelor right now and that's why things aren't better. He's writing a dissertation -- I see poking fun. I kind of like this 'cause I feel like he's poking fun at myself. And he's writing a dissertation, he's working on his Ph.D., and it's to the point of why man became the master of animals. And he then has this kind of curious thing about evolution. He said in the old argument, which came first, the chicken or the egg. He is totally on the side that the egg came first. And then he talks about creation on 191. He says, "When God had manufactured all the eggs out of which the fishes and the serpents and the birds and the mammals and even the duck-billed platypus would eventually emerge, he called the embryos before Him, and saw that they were good." You feel like just standing in front of a congregation, reading out of something on Sunday morning, "And they were good." What happens? All the embryos are given a chance to choose special gifts and they have free will to choose these gifts. They can choose one, they can choose two, special attributes, or, in the case of the badger, he chose three. But whatever you choose you have to stick with. You know, that's your lot. That's what you chose. And who comes last? Man comes last. This took two days. Two days. Man comes last. On page 192, in the middle,

20 LLT 180 Lecture 7 20 "The asking and granting took up two long days--they were the fifth and sixth, so far as I remember--and at the very end of the sixth day, just before it was time to knock off for Sunday, they had got through all the little embryos except one. This embryo was Man." And what does man decide? Man says, "Well, I figure you have to have some reason for doing what you're doing, God, so I'll just stay the way I am." And God said, "Good move. That's the right choice." Man says there on 192, "'Please God,' said the embryo" -- this is Man's embryo, our great, great ancestor -- 'I think that You made me in the shape which I now have for reasons best known to Yourselves....'" Kind of interesting. Made God a collective, not Yourself but Yourselves. And he's probably being clever here, you know? "'... and that it would be rude to change. If I am to have my choice I will stay as I am.'" And the Creator, or Creators, says at the bottom, "'Well done, exclaimed the Creator.'" And so he gives him dominion over all the others. And then God says what? "Run along and do your best." I kind of see humor in this. He says at the end of the paragraph on 193, "Run along then, and do your best." So is man king of the animals? I think the badger would maintain the use of the word, on the bottom of 193, is tyrant. So again we're getting back to this whole kingship thing, about how do you use the authority vested in you? How do you use the responsibilities vested in you? Do you use it to be a tyrant? No. Which man perhaps

21 LLT 180 Lecture 7 21 wants to be to give you power over people does not mean you should be a tyrant. As far as the other animals, man is that. Man has a quantity of vices, we read at the bottom of 193. Not one, not one. And they make the point -- you know, I look out on my back yard and see the squirrels out there playing and the birds and everything. Are they scared of each other? No. The point is, if man comes out they all run away. They all run away. All creatures are scared of man. Well, some of the little bug creatures in your house aren't, unfortunately. They might scurry away from the light but they won't scurry away from you. What's Arthur repeatedly told? Very few people, very few species kill their own, you know, and man is one of those few. O One of those few. It says on the bottom of 193, "Do you know that Homo sapiens is almost the only animal which wages war?" "Ants. Ants." "There are more than four thousand different sorts of ants," he says on the top of 194. "There are five ants, one termite that I know of, and Man." So who kills their own? In all of creation, these few. They say true warfare is rarer than cannibalism. Actually, I read something the other day that evidently early man in North America -- also they were studying fewmets for man. That's not a joke. And that man ate -- they were cannibals. They key question -- good place to end the class period -- key question at the very end, which I've been beating up and if you don't get the answer -- "Which did you like best," he asked, "the ants or the wild geese?" Now, obviously, the geese. And the important point is that Arthur consistently has had a romantic view of war and knighthood and he's gonna have to become reflective about that.

22 LLT 180 Lecture 7 22 On Monday we will do the very end of this because we've got to obviously see Wart become King Arthur by pulling the sword. And so we'll spend the first part of the class period doing that and we'll see part of the tape on Knights in Armor from the History Channel. We'll may have to hold part of that tape over until the next class period when we'll do Arnold. And so we'll take about a two-day respite from reading. So those of you who've been goofing off and not doing the reading, this gives you a chance to catch up. Have a safe weekend.