Vincent van Gogh; the incident in the summer of 1881

Antonin Artaud, one of famous French surrealists, sums up the life of Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, in Preface for his work titled Van Gogh, in the following way:

‘One can speak of the good mental health of van Gogh who, in his whole life, cooked only one of his hands and did nothing else except once to cut off his left ear’ (http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SWu4SB92fHMC&pg=PA608&lpg=PA608&dq=antonin+artaud+van+gogh+left+ear&source=bl&ots=rSlBDomHNm&sig=uOC_6Xo6wCTbWxKT5RaVEQ7YXTk&hl=en&ei=XnCEToHQIMagmQX71un5Dw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=antonin%20artaud%20van%20gogh%20left%20ear&f=false).

Antonin Artaud

Regardless to whether it could be appropriate to describe such horrible events were done in ‘the good mental health’ or not, it would be intriguing to make sure what exactly happened in the painter’s real life. To have certain ideas on these incidents, it would be handy to have a look at following summaries from a relatively reliable biography of Vincent van Gogh that would be easy to be found on the internet:

The first event took place in the summer of 1881, when Vincent van Gogh was 28 years old. At that time, he was living in Etten, a small village in the south of The Netherlands, with his parent. It is known that Vincent ‘applied for study at the Ecole des Beaux-Art in Brussels’ (http://www.vggallery.com/misc/bio.htm) prior to the summer, biographers disagree on whether his application was accepted or not. Whatever the case, the event took place during he was living in Etten, and soon after he came across with a girl called Kee:

‘he met his cousin Cornelia Adriana Vos-Stricker (Kee). Kee… had been recently widowed and was raising a young son on her own. Vincent fell in love with Kee and was devastated when she rejected his advances… After being spurned by Kee, Vincent decided to confront her at her parents’ house. Kee’s father refused to let Vincent see his daughter and Vincent, ever determined, put his hand over the funnel of an oil lamp, intentionally burning himself. Vincent’s intent was to hold his hand over the flame until he was allowed to see Kee. Kee’s father quickly defused the situation by simply blowing out the lamp and Vincent left the house humiliated’ (ibid).

For reading the text in full:  http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2011/10/10/tales-about-vincent-van-gogh-in-antonin-artaud-and-in-a-biography/

An informative Vincent van Gogh website: https://www.artsy.net/artist/vincent-van-gogh

22 November, 1963

On 22 November in 1963, the world lost three famous people in this same single day; needless to say, the most famous and important figure among these three was John F. Kennedy, the President of the United State; and other two were both famous writers; Aldous Huxley, of Brave New World, and C. S. Lewis, of The Chronicles of Narnia.
The assassination of the President J. F. Kennedy has been discussed and analysed for years and years, however, the deaths of other two writers has caught far fewer attention except for their specific researchers or devoted fans. This blog entry simply attempts to work out how each of them died individually and, hopefully, would like to align the deaths in chronological order.

As everybody knows, John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on this day, while his ‘presidential motorcade was travelling through the main business area of the city’ (http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/22/newsid_2451000/2451143.stm). According to the article, the President was ‘hit in the head and throat when three shots were fired at his open-topped car’ (ibid) while the car was slowly passing through Dealey Plaza at about 13:25 local time. Soon after the shooting, ‘Mr Kennedy’s limousine was driven at speed to Parklands Hospital’ (ibid), and even ‘The president was alive when he was admitted’ (ibid), unfortunately, the article concludes that the President Kennedy ‘died at 1400 local time (1900 GMT)’ (ibid).

John F. Kennedy

Approximately an hour before J. F. K was hit, at about 18:25 in Greenwich Mean Time, C. S. Lewis died at his home called The Kiln, where he had been living since 1929,  in Oxford, England. It is said that ‘He had resigned his position at ( the Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at) Cambridge (that he had accepted in 1954) during the summer’ due to his health issues and he ‘died at 5:30 p.m… on Friday, November 22, after a variety of illnesses, including a heart attack and kidney problems’ (http://cslewis.drzeus.net/bio/).

Finally, as for the time and circumstance of Aldous Huxley’s death, it can be confirmed that he ‘died of cancer at home in Hollywood on 22 November 1963, unaware that President J. F. Kennedy had been assassinated earlier that afternoon in Dallas’ (Bradshaw, 2005, p xiv)*. Although sources like Wikipedia give the concrete time of his death; at 5:20 pm in local time, since sources like this are usually regarded as untrustworthy in academic fields, this blog decides to satisfy with providing the chronological order of the deaths as; (1) C. S. Lewis at 17:30 GMT, (2) John F. Kennedy at 19:00 GMT and (3) Aldous Huxley at later than both of them.

*Bradshaw, David (2005), Biographical Introduction for The Devils of Loudun by Aldous Huxley

Plato's hypothetical refutation against Aristotle

As Socrates’s example clearly shows, wisdom at its wisest only achieves to wisdom as not knowing due to ‘the limited nature of human knowing—as he says, all human wisdom is worthless, nothing, in other words, fallible. Even in their best operation, even regarding those beliefs for which we have the best reasons, and spent the most time considering, human knowing is still fallible, and error is still possible’ (http://www.carroll.edu/msmillie/perspectives/wisdomasexcellence.htm). A clear cut difference between Aristotle and Plato here is, while Aristotle sticks to conduct his causal investigation, following the tradition of his predecessors, basically by counting on his own human might, Plato rather recommends Socratic dialectic to minimise the effect of human fallibility, since it helps to ‘overcome our own defensiveness, prejudice, haste, lack of confidence’ (ibid).

However Aristotle’s causal investigation could be more realistic or scientific, in Plato’s view it would be ended up to be described as it follows: ‘We learn about physical objects empirically, by means of the senses: we look at them, taste them, listen to them, and so on. But none of the information we gain in this way is reliable or trustworthy: we don’t have real knowledge of the visible world, just mere “opinion.”… Empirical evidence is at best irrelevant, at worst misleading’ (http://www.trinity.edu/cbrown/intro/plato_two_worlds.html). Having rejected to learn by means of the sense, Plato tries to replace it with means of Reason. Upon this differentiation, once again, Plato inevitably goes back to his two world theory. In his view, ‘Our physical bodies are a part of the visible world. Our bodies are responsible for our appetites. Our sense organs, by means of which we learn about the visible world… But there’s also another part of us which links us with the eternal realm of the Forms, namely our soul (which for Plato is more or less identical with our reason). So one result of coming to learn about the Forms is that we will become less concerned with physical matters; we will be less governed by our appetites, and less reliant on our unreliable senses for knowledge’ (ibid).

Plato

For reading the text in full: http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/plato-and-aristotle-in-their-ontological-and-teleological-views/

Aristotle's teleological final cause and Socrates's wisdom in Plato's 'Apology'

Among Aristotle's four causes, the final cause only regards to explain why it is and by providing this, it is argued that ‘Aristotle offers a teleological explanation… that is to say, an explanation that makes a reference to the telos or end of the process’ (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-causality/#FouCau). In general, it is said that ‘for Aristotle, an end (telos) is always something good’ (http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/39290-teleology-first-principles-and-scientific-method-in-aristotle-s-biology/). Strictly speaking, ‘final causation requires invoking the good as a per se cause. This is why Aristotle thinks no one before him grasped the final cause. For they may have employed the good in their accounts but only as an incidental cause’ (ibid). In this quest for the good as per se (good in itself), Aristotle’s tune resonates with his old mentor, Plato, whose teaching could be summarised in a following way: ‘A life focused on the question of its greatest good is a life lived to its fullest—an excellent or virtuous life’ (http://www.carroll.edu/msmillie/perspectives/wisdomasexcellence.htm).

Seeking for the good as per se, or the greatest good, whilst Aristotle takes a direction for the Ethics, Plato sees the best example in his old mentor, Socrates, and whose wisdom. In Plato’s Apology, Socrates ‘identifies his activity with “wisdom”’ (ibid) as the wisest who ‘understands that his wisdom is worthless’ (ibid). This wisdom, and its ultimate state called wisdom as not knowing, provide the very basis of Plato’s thoughts. From his first-hand experience, Plato impersonates his late mentor and retells, ‘…the greatest good for a man [is] to discuss virtue [excellence] every day… for the unexamined life is not worth living for men’ (ibid).

Socrates

For reading the text in full: http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/plato-and-aristotle-in-their-ontological-and-teleological-views/

Aristotle's Four Causes

It has been criticised that what Aristotle counts as the form or ‘primary substance is one that is not in any way universal’ (http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/zeta17.htm). Nevertheless, Aristotle insists that ‘Substances are supposed to be objects of knowledge, and objects of knowledge are universals… (and are supposed to be) definable’ (ibid). As for knowledge, in its proper meaning, he also gives a following condition: ‘we think we have knowledge of a thing only when we have grasped its cause’ (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-causality/#FouCau). As for causes, through examining traditional causal investigations conducted by his predecessors, he reaches to a conclusion that ‘all his predecessors were engaged in an investigation that eventuated in knowledge of one or more of the following causes: material, formal, efficient and final cause’ (ibid). In summary, Aristotle supposedly means ‘proper knowledge is knowledge of the cause’ (ibid). Here, it would be useful to mention that what Aristotle actually had in mind was something that could be only described by using the Greek word aitia, which ‘is translated as “causes,” is probably better rendered as “that which explains”’ (http://www.philosophicalinvestigations.co.uk/index.php/philosophy/artistotle/1032-essay). In other words, ‘knowledge of the form or essence is in effect knowledge of the thing’s causes, of what explains why it is what it is’ (ibid). As a result of these arguments, Aristotle gives one of his flagship accounts known as the Four Causes, which can be summarised as following:

• ‘The material cause: “that out of which”, e.g., the bronze of a statue.
• The formal cause: “the form”, “the account of what-it-is-to-be”, e.g., the shape of a statue.
• The efficient cause: “the primary source of the change or rest”, e.g., the artisan, the art of      bronze-casting the statue, the man who gives advice, the father of the child.
• The final cause: “the end, that for the sake of which a thing is done”, e.g., health is the end of walking, losing weight, purging, drugs, and surgical tools’ (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-causality/#FouCau).

Source: http://iraknol.wordpress.com/article/aristotle-s-physics-the-four-causes-3ncxde0rz8dtk-8/

For reading the text in full: http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/plato-and-aristotle-in-their-ontological-and-teleological-views/

Aristotle's Form as Substance

In the Metaphysics, Aristotle 'suggests that a compound (of form and matter) cannot be a substance (Z3, 1029a30)’ (http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/zeta17.htm). Instead, he defines requirements to be a substance as being ‘separable and a this something’ (ibid) .

Subsequently, Aristotle ‘considers the claim of matter to be substance, and rejects it’ (ibid) because ‘Substance must be separable and a this something (individual)’ (ibid). To cut a long story short, it could be summarised that ‘perhaps Aristotle’s point is not that matter is neither separable nor individual; all he is committed to saying is that matter fails to be both separable and individual’ (ibid), therefore, ‘The only remaining candidate for primary substance seems to be form’ (ibid). Whilst the form Plato argued was separable from their shadows in the visible world, it is said that the form Aristotle argues is not ‘separable from all matter (except, perhaps, in thought). And it cannot exist if it is not the form of something’ (ibid). In his logic, individual substances are ‘compounds of matter and form’ (ibid), and ‘they’re not just unstructured collections of elements, but have a structure that is essential to their being what they are’ (ibid). In this relation, the form provides matter ‘a structure that is essential to their being what they are’ (ibid), therefore, ‘the form of a compound substance is essential to it (whilst) its matter is accidental’ (ibid). Due to its own nature, the form in Aristotle ‘is not a “thing,” (but)… the way something is’ (ibid) and this is where his form differs from Plato’s and where the following criticism arises from; what Aristotle counts as the form or ‘primary substance is one that is not in any way universal’ (ibid).

Aristotle

For reading the text in full: http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/plato-and-aristotle-in-their-ontological-and-teleological-views/

Aristotle's rejection of the Two World Theory and on Primary Substance

In the meantime, Aristotle famously rejects Plato’s two world theory. He argues that ‘one cannot know the type of interaction which is occurring between the two Forms. If the “real or ideal forms” are eternal, pure and unchanging then how do they relate to the material objections or Forms on earth with all their physical imperfections? This participation or imitation link between the real and the imaginary… is erroneous thinking as no one can/has established such a link’ (http://www.philosophicalinvestigations.co.uk/index.php/philosophy/artistotle/1032-essay).

Having objected his former mentor, Aristotle determined to stick to his belief that ‘our natural world itself was real and physical’ (ibid) and to ‘place himself in direct continuity with’ (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-causality/#FouCau) the tradition done by his predecessors: a causal investigation of the natural world around us. In doing so, he had to face to the same fact as Plato and other predecessors that physical objects – or matters, in his words – are constantly changing, in other words, ‘Matter underlies and persists through substantial changes. A substance is generated (destroyed) by having matter take on (lose) form’ (http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/zeta17.htm). This may suggest that ontological substances – or primary substances – could be ‘compounds of form and matter’ (ibid). However, ‘in the Metaphysics, Aristotle suggests that a compound cannot be a substance (Z3, 1029a30)’ (ibid). Instead, he defines requirements to be a substance as being ‘separable and a this something’ (ibid) As for the latter, the web site above adds a description that this locution is ‘usually translated, perhaps misleadingly, as “an individual”’ (ibid).

Aristotle

For reading the text in full: http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/plato-and-aristotle-in-their-ontological-and-teleological-views/

Plato's Two World Theory

In his theory, Plato sees the physical earthly world as being ‘full of unevenness, imperfections, and impurities’ (http://www.philosophicalinvestigations.co.uk/index.php/philosophy/artistotle/1032-essay). He observes ‘Physical objects are constantly changing (in flux, to use the Heraclitean term)’ (http://www.trinity.edu/cbrown/intro/plato_two_worlds.html) and therefore ‘They are transient and ephemeral’ (ibid). He goes further, with his famous Cave Allegory, to explain that ‘what we see on earth are mimics of the real thing, only with a lot of imperfections’ (http://www.philosophicalinvestigations.co.uk/index.php/philosophy/artistotle/1032-essay), in other words, ‘In real life all that is seen is an illusion (smoke) of the real thing’ (ibid). From this view point, Plato presents his two world theory, in which, ’there are two separate worlds or realms’ (http://www.trinity.edu/cbrown/intro/plato_two_worlds.html), namely the visible world of ordinary physical objects and the intelligible world of the Forms. Needless to say, in his Cave Allegory, the former is described as prisoners’ world in the cave whilst the latter as the real world out of the cave. In this theory, there are Forms in the intelligible world that ‘are unchanging and eternal’ (ibid), unlike physical objects we see in our visible world. Furthermore, Plato argues that the visible world ‘is a kind of shadow or reflection of the world of the Forms’ (ibid), ‘Physical objects (in the visible world) are less real than the Forms (in the intelligible world). Physical objects get what reality they have by their participation in the Forms’ (ibid), in other words, what he calls Forms ‘are what really exists’ (ibid).

Now, there arises a question whether the so-called intelligible world is accessible from our visible world or not. On this point, Plato gives the metaphor of the Divided line, another metaphor – along with the Cave Allegory – in his work The Republic and explains as it follows: ‘The intelligible world consists of the things above the (main) line’ (ibid), namely images and Forms, whilst ‘The visible world consists of the things below the (main) line’ (ibid), namely physical objects that are shadows or reflections of the Forms. Nonetheless, in practice, it is yet unclear what does it mean above/below the divided line and though Plato postulates in case where ‘once the humans rose above (the divided line from) their physical environment, they would understand the Forms which were present in the invisible world’ (http://www.philosophicalinvestigations.co.uk/index.php/philosophy/artistotle/1032-essay), nevertheless, this still holds a room to be answered, as it is argued ‘Whether he meant this would occur after death or during life remains a mystery’ (ibid).

Cave Allegory

For reading the text in full: http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/plato-and-aristotle-in-their-ontological-and-teleological-views/

Plato and Aristotle, in general

Plato and Aristotle are both well-known philosophers throughout the Western history. While the former is known for his Cave Allegory and the Two World Theory, the latter is famous for his Four Causes, as far as their ontological accounts concern. Plato (427/428 B. C. – 347/348 B. C.) was born in Athens and was a disciple of Socrates, who was executed in 399 B. C., whilst Aristotle (384 B. C. – 322 B. C.) was born in Stagirus, Macedonia and studied under Plato at the Academy, an educational institution established by the latter, in Athens. Both were born in wealthy family background, lost their father in their young age, and received education designed by their guardians: as for Plato, ‘his family had a history in politics’ (http://www.egs.edu/library/plato/biography/) of Athens, his father ‘died while Plato was young’ (ibid), and he ‘studied at a gymnasium owned by Dionysios, and at the palaistra of Ariston of Argos’ (ibid). Similarly, Aristotle’s father ‘was court physician to King Amyntas of Macedonia’ (http://www.egs.edu/library/aristotle/biography/) called Nichomachus, who ‘died while he was a child’ (ibid), and his guardian ‘sent him to Athens at age 17’ (ibid).

However, in terms of relationship between the philosopher himself and his mentor, Plato and Aristotle do not look alike: (1) whilst Plato followed Socrates voluntarily, Aristotle was sent to Plato’s Academy by his guardian’s will. (2) Similarly, whilst Plato established his own thoughts based on Socrates’s teachings and though his mentor’s influence gradually diminished towards his later works, in general, it could be said that largely Plato remained loyal to his mentor all through his life. On the contrary, after the death of Plato, Aristotle began to reject his mentor’s teachings – most famously Plato’s so-called two world theory.

Plato (left) and Aristotle from 'School of Athens' by Raphael

For reading the text in full: http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/plato-and-aristotle-in-their-ontological-and-teleological-views/

The Tibetan Book of the Dead, a. k. a. Bardo Thodol

It would be useful to briefly examine the contents of the established Tibetan work, which was to be translated into English under the title of The Tibetan Book of the Dead. First of all, the original Tibetan title of this work is Bardo Thodol, and it means ‘liberation by hearing on the after death plane’ (http://www.summum.us/mummification/tbotd/). As this original title implies, the book is written to be ‘a guide for those who have died as they transition from their former life to a new destination’ (ibid). The book contains the unique notion of Entering into the Womb that allegedly takes place during the period of so-called After Death, and it is argued that this notion can be connected to ‘one of the most significant canonical sources for Tibetan medical literature devoted to the science of human reproduction and growth’ (http://www2.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/dead/sutras.html).

For closing this short entry, it would be appropriate to quote from the web site above to provide further information for those who are interested in Tibetan literature in general.

‘In Tibetan medicine, human physical development is frequently explained as being analogous to the development of the universe. In this way, the ordinary dying and rebirth process is understood directly in terms of the ebb and flow of the cosmos. The Sutra on Entering into the Womb details the progression of a transmigrating consciousness from the final moment of death, to conception in the future mother’s womb’ (ibid).

For reading the text in full:  http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2011/11/23/the-tibetan-book-of-the-dead-the-establishment-of-the-work/

Thonmi Sambhota and translation from Sanskrit to Tibetan alphabet

Meanwhile, it is also interesting to have a look at the development of the writing system in Tibetan language in relation to the establishment of The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Regardless to the legend of Padma-Sambhava, it is not difficult to make sure that there were strong interests for Buddhism in Tibet in those days and it is said that ‘During the 7th Century AD Songstem Gampo… (569-649AD), the 33rd king of the Yarlung Dynasty of southern Tibet and the first Emperor of Tibet, sent Thonmi Sambhota, one of his ministers, to India to gather information on Buddhism. The minister then reputedly devised a script for Tibetan…and also wrote a grammar of Tibetan based on Sanskrit grammars. The new Tibetan alphabet was used to write Tibetan translations of Buddhists texts. The first Sanskrit-Tibetan dictionary… appeared in the 9th century’ (http://www.omniglot.com/writing/tibetan.htm).
Thus, it could be roughly said that during the 7th to 9th centuries, Tibetan people saw the rise in their interests on Buddhism in general and developed their own writing systems through learning and translating from works of Buddhism originally written in Sanskrit. In addition, in order to consider the historical background of the authorship of the Book of the Dead, which belongs to the legend, it must be important to acknowledge that such early Tibetan literature contained a specific genre called ‘gter-ma’ that was categorised as rediscovered texts such as ‘reputedly the work of ancient masters which have been hidden in remote caves for many centuries’ (ibid).

Thonmi Sambhota

For reading the text in full: http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2011/11/23/the-tibetan-book-of-the-dead-the-establishment-of-the-work/

Discovery of hidden Sanskrit works by Karma Lingpa (c. 1365)

The hidden 8th Century works written by an Indian mystic Padma-Sambhava, which were supposed to be all written in Sanskrit, were discovered in the fourteenth century, most notably by a local youth in Tibet called Karma Lingpa. According to a web site (http://www.summum.us/mummification/tbotd/), he was born around 1350 and his discovery took place when he was fifteen years old, therefore, it could be said that he found these hidden Sanskrit works roughly in circa 1365. It seems that he was not the only person who discovered such hidden documents and what he discovered included other works than what later became to be known as The Tibetan Book of the Dead, however, at least it can be said that within the hidden works, ‘he found a collection of teachings entitled The Self-Emergence of the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities from Enlightened Awareness. These teachings contained the texts of the now famous Great Liberation upon Hearing in the Bardo’ (ibid).

 

Though the discovery of the hidden works enabled what had been written in Sanskrit to be known to the future generations in Tibet, it should be recognised that nothing is certain about neither the physical existence of the hidden Sanskrit works nor the reliability of the legend that holds Padma-Sambhava’s authorship of the works. Believe it or not, in a case where it presumes that there had been such hidden works, inevitably it should conclude that these works were totally lost physically in the later years after the discovery because it is said that ‘The original Sanskrit texts of the Sutra (scripture)… on Death and the Transmigration of Souls are no longer extant and are known only through their Tibetan versions’ (http://www2.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/dead/sutras.html).

 

For reading the text in full: http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2011/11/23/the-tibetan-book-of-the-dead-the-establishment-of-the-work/

Padma-Sambhava and his hidden Sanskrit works

History of the establishment of The Tibetan Book of the Dead can be traced back to a legend of an Indian mystic called Padma-Sambhava. It is said that he travelled to Tibet in the 8th century and introduced Buddhism for the first time to the region. However, while he was visiting there, he ‘found it necessary to conceal Sanskrit works he had arranged to be written’ (http://www.summum.us/mummification/tbotd/) because he found that the ‘Tibetans of that time were not ready for the spiritual teachings contained therein’ (ibid). Therefore, Padma-Sambhava ‘hid his texts in strange and remote locations, leaving them to be discovered at a later time when their spiritual message could be received by those with an open mind’ (ibid).

 

According to this legend, it would be natural to assume that the original works were written not in Tibetan but in Sanskrit. This particular language contributes to connect the alleged author of the works to India, the region he originally came from, and mystic, the occupation he was categorised, because ‘Sanskrit is the classical language of Indian and the liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism… The name Sanskrit means “refined”, “consecrated” and “sanctified”. It has always been regarded as the ‘high’ language and used mainly for religious and scientific discourse’ (http://www.omniglot.com/writing/sanskrit.htm). It is also argued that the classical form of Sanskrit is ‘the liturgical language of the Vedic religion’ (ibid) and it is ‘one of the earliest attested members of the Indo-European language family’ (ibid).

Padma-Sambhava

 

 

For reading the text in full: http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2011/11/23/the-tibetan-book-of-the-dead-the-establishment-of-the-work/

English translation of The Tibetan Book of the Dead; who contributed for what?

The English translation of The Tibetan Book of the Dead was first published in 1927 b y the Oxford University Press. Since then, the name of Dr. Walter Yeeling Evans-Wentz has been associated to this mysterious book of Buddhism as its editor, compiler, alleged translator and the best contributor for introducing and promoting this work by giving a new title to the book that could remind prospective readers of the famous ancient Egyptians’ counterpart. Meanwhile, the E-Book version of the book, based on the same 1927 edition, credits Karma-glin-pa as the author, Lâma Dawa-Samdu, as the translator, and W. Y. Evans-Wentz as the compiler and the editor of the book respectively (http://www.summum.us/mummification/tbotd/). Regardless to the arguments on who actually contributed to what extent, looking at how the book has been established from a realm of legend to the form known today could give some intriguing perspectives of this fascinating work of Buddhism.



Walter Yeeling Evans-Wentz

For reading the text in full: http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2011/11/23/the-tibetan-book-of-the-dead-the-establishment-of-the-work/

Summary of King David's reign in Jerusalem

David’s reign in Jerusalem could be briefly summarised as following:

 

(1). ‘David’s… greatness was characterized by great territorial gains for Israel (2 Samuel 8:1-14). Within a relatively short period of time, he ruled from The Nile River in Egypt to the Euphrates River in the The Tigris-Euphrates Valley (2 Samuel 8:3-13)’ (http://www.keyway.ca/htm2002/david.htm).

 

(2). On the other hand, ‘David’s success was focused too heavily on material gains, and it corrupted him. His committing of adultery with Bathsheba, and the murder of her husband Uriah in an attempt to cover it up was perhaps the darkest event of his life’ (ibid).

 

(3). Furthermore, ‘His many wives and children were constantly in fierce competition with each other within the family’ and one of such conflicts even ‘triggered a civil war’ (ibid).

King David

 

He reigned as king of Israel for forty years and six months (2 Samuel 5:5) and when he died at the age of seventy, it is said that he ‘was buried in the city of David (1 Kings 2:10-11)’ (ibid).

 

For reading the text in full: http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2011/12/05/the-ark-of-covenant-and-the-reign-of-king-david/

The Ark of Covenant: from the House of Abinadab to Jerusalem

Abinadab and his father Saul were both killed by the Philistines in the battle of Gilboa and this took place ‘Thirteen years after the Ark was placed in the house of Abinadab’ (http://globalchristiancenter.com/lesser-known-bible-people-series/the-house-of-abinadab-and-the-ark-of-god.html). It followed by seven years of the civil war, before David finally became to anointed king for all over Israel, by defeating Ish-bosheth, the sole surviving son of Saul. Then, he decided to move his capital from Hebron to Jerusalem and he managed to conquer the city by attacking the inhabitants there called Jebusites. At this point, the Ark was still located in the same place and even though Abinadab had been killed over seven years ago, the place was still called ‘the House of Abinadab’ (2Samuel 6:3).

Now, the city of Jerusalem is prepared to be brought in the Ark of Covenant. However, during the procession of the Ark, another mysterious tragedy takes place. When ‘Uzzah sees the cart lurch, and stretches out his hand to steady the Ark’, in order to keep it from falling, ‘Fire from heaven strikes him dead (2 Samuel 6:6-8)’ (ibid). This incident terrified David enough to be ‘afraid to have The Ark in the City of David, so he left it in the house of Obed-Edom, a Philistine from Gath (2 Samuel 6:9-11)’ (Blank). It took him three months to make up his mind to relocate the Ark to ‘a new tabernacle that David set up for it’ (ibid).

Death of Uzzah

 

For reading the text in full: http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2011/12/05/the-ark-of-covenant-and-the-reign-of-king-david/

The Ark of Covenent; how it ended up to the house of Abinadab

The Ark of the Covenant was originally made (Exodus 40:20) for containing the two stone tablets of the Ten Commandments, which had been handed to Moses from the God himself. During the time of priest Eli, probably about a hundred years later from the time of Moses, The Ark was temporary captured by Philistines, enemy of the Israelites, and was kept by them for about seven months (1 Samuel 6:1).

When Philistines decided to return the Ark to Israelites due to the spread of plagues, the Ark was moved to a town called Beth-shemesh. Although the Ark ‘was unloaded by Levites (1 Sam 6:15); and sacrifices were offered before it that day’ (http://globalchristiancenter.com/lesser-known-bible-people-series/the-house-of-abinadab-and-the-ark-of-god.html), ‘the Beth-shemeshites incurred upon themselves the curse of God, in which 50,070 men were slaughtered (1 Sam 6:19)’ (ibid) because they openend it and looked inside of the Ark. Therefore, the people there decided to send the Ark to ‘the people of Kirjath-jearim, who were slaves and serviced the House of God with water and wood, to come and fetch the Ark. (1Sa 6:21)’ (ibid).

The Ark of Covenant

The Old Testament continues that 'the men of Kirjath-jearim came, and fetched up the Ark and ‘brought it into the house of Abinadab in the hill, and sanctified… his son to keep the ark of the LORD (1Samuel 7:1)’ (ibid). The web  site above additionally quotes from the following verse, saying ‘The Ark remained in the house of Abinadab for 20 years (1Sa 7:2)’ (ibid). It gives further details about the place and person in question; whilst ‘The village of Kirjath-jearim was grouped with Gibeah, Gibeon, Ramah and Jerusalem (Joshua 18:25-28)’ (ibid) and the area belonged to the tribe of Benjamin, Abinadab was a son of King Saul, who was ruling Israel at that time.

 

For reading the text in full: http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2011/12/05/the-ark-of-covenant-and-the-reign-of-king-david/

Michael Ventris and his deciphering of Linear B

Following the circulation of his “Mid-Century Report” on Linear B in 1950, Michael Ventris ‘gave up his architectural job to work full-time on Linear B’ (http://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/faculty/research_groups_and_societies/mycenaean_epigraphy/decipherment/life_of_ventris/). In his attempt for deciphering, Ventris ‘wondered about the repeated groups of symbols identified by (Alice) Kober as evidence of inflection’ (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22782620). Then he began to work – in his words, ‘rather like doing a crossword puzzle on which the positions of the black squares haven’t been printed for you’ (http://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/faculty/research_groups_and_societies/mycenaean_epigraphy/decipherment/life_of_ventris/) – assuming the characters as a syllabic system and focused on finding some place names because these are ‘exactly the kinds of thing you’d expect to crop up all the time, especially on official palace documents. And place names often don’t change much, even after centuries’ (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22782620). By February 1952, ‘he wrote to (John) Myres about the Knossos place names’ (http://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/faculty/research_groups_and_societies/mycenaean_epigraphy/decipherment/life_of_ventris/) he had deciphered in the script and by May, ‘he felt the code was “breaking” and that, to his astonishment, the Linear B documents were, after all, written in Greek’ (ibid). Then, Ventris was invited to talk about Myre’s publication on the BBC Third Programme and he ‘took the opportunity to announce the decipherment and it was broadcast to the world on 1 July 1952’ (ibid). The broadcast enabled Ventris to collaborate with John Chadwick, a professional philologist – especially an expert on early Greek – who heard the programme, and they worked together closely for deciphering the script for a next few years.

Michael Ventris

As a result, it turned out that Linear B was ‘a form of ancient Greek, which had been taken to Crete by invaders from the mainland. The Greeks themselves did not develop an alphabet until centuries later, but at Knossos their language was written down for the first time, using an ancient script indigenous to the island’ (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22782620). It would be worth to mention that ‘In a lecture after he had cracked Linear B…Ventris did however give substantial credit to Kober for her contribution – but this acknowledgement went largely unnoticed’ (ibid). Some argue that ‘Ventris would never have been able to crack the code, had it not been for an American classicist, Alice Kober’ (ibid) whilst others ‘question whether Kober would have had the creative spark to jump the final hurdle’ (ibid). Long before answering to this question, Michael Ventris ‘died in a tragic car accident on 6 September 1956’ (http://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/faculty/research_groups_and_societies/mycenaean_epigraphy/decipherment/life_of_ventris/), while he was ‘At the height of his fame and just weeks before the publication of his great joint work with Chadwick, Documents in Mycenaean Greek’ (ibid). The accident ‘has never been fully explained (and) some believe it may have been suicide’ (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22782620).

For reading the text in full: http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2013/08/26/discovery-and-deciphiering-of-the-crete-inscriptions-liner-b/

Michael Ventris and his predecessors: Sir Arthur Evans and Alice Kober

Michael Ventris’s early careers can be summarised as following: he ‘was born on 12 July 1922 to an Indian Army officer and the daughter of a wealthy Polish landowner. He was educated on the continent and at Stowe School in England. He spoke several languages at an early age and showed a precocious interest in ancient scripts, having bought a book on Egyptian Hieroglyphs when he was seven.

His interest in Linear B began in 1936 when he went with a school group to an exhibition celebrating the 50^th anniversary of the British School at Athens. Sir Arthur Evans, then 85 years old, happened to be present in the gallery and showed the boys his finds from Knossos, including the Linear B documents. His teacher remembers Ventris asking: “Did you say the tablets haven’t been deciphered, Sir?” Thus began a life-long fascination with “the Minoan problem”.

Ventris wrote to Evans — who kindly wrote back — and soon published his first article on the subject, when he was just 18 years old. This came out in the American Journal of Archaeology in 1940. The same year, Ventris began a course at the Architectural Association School in Bedford Square to embark on his chosen profession as an architect’ (http://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/faculty/research_groups_and_societies/mycenaean_epigraphy/decipherment/life_of_ventris/).

During the WWII, Ventris ‘served as a navigator’ (ibid) while Sir Arthur Evans died ‘just in time to be spared news of the occupation of Crete’ in 1941. But Ventris ‘never forgot the Aegean scripts problem’ (ibid) and after the death of Evans, he ‘corresponded thereafter with Sir John Myres, who had been entrusted by Evans with the publication of Scripta Minoa II, the Linear B tablets of Knossos’ (ibid).

Sir John Myres

After the war, it still took Ventris a few more years to settle things back on track. He was further mobilised to Germany due to this excellence in 1946, and after that he had to concentrate for his architect degree, which he finished in 1948. Through these years, Ventris visited John Myres in Oxford twice and in both occasions he had to decline the invitation for helping publication of Scripta Minoa II due to his busyness. Interestingly, Ventris had an opportunity to meet Alice Kober, who was brought in by Myres, in the second occasion on August 1948. Though this was the sole opportunity for Ventris and Kober to see each other, it is said that the meeting ‘was not a great success, and… It has been said that Ventris withdrew because, as an amateur, he was intimidated by academia’ (ibid) while it would be worth adding that ‘many academics themselves found Kober and Myres rather formidable!’ (ibid) Furthermore, other factors that made this meeting unsuccessful are allegedly pointed out as it follows: there was a crucial ‘disagreement over how the tablets should be classified’ (ibid) between Ventris and others and in this, ‘he was justified’ (ibid) when ‘a new set of transcriptions were later prepared by himself, (John) Chadwick and (Emmett) Bennett’ (ibid). As for compatibility between Ventris and Kober, some argues that ‘each underestimated the other deeply… She underestimated him because he was an amateur, and he underestimated her because she was a woman’ (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22782620).

Fore reading the text in full: http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2013/08/26/discovery-and-deciphiering-of-the-crete-inscriptions-liner-b/

Alice Kober's conrtibution for deciphering Linear B

After the death of Sir Arthur Evans, his ambition for deciphering the clay tablet scripts known as Linear B was left to surviving scholars, experts and individual researchers. Among them was an American female classicist, Miss Alice Kober. According to Margalit Fox, an author on Linear B, Kober ‘was an assistant professor at Brooklyn College in New York where she taught Latin and Greek classes all day’ (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22782620). She ‘lived with her widowed mother, and there is no record in her papers of a social or romantic life of any kind. Instead, for almost two decades (in 1930s and 40s), Alice Kober devoted herself to trying to crack this mysterious Bronze Age script’ (ibid). Through her ‘hours and hours of unseen labour’, Fox adds, ‘She turned herself into the world’s leading expert on Linear B’ (ibid). On top of Latin and Greek, she also learned Egyptian. Akkadian. Sumerian, and Sanskrit – partly due to the academic climate on Linear B where, ‘Greek had been ruled out by scholars at the time’ (ibid) – but she also rigorously refused ‘to speculate on what the language was, or what the sounds of the symbols might be’ (ibid). Instead, she established her own methods and poured her efforts described as following:

‘… she set out to record the frequency of every symbol in the tablets, both in general, and then in every position within a word.
She also recorded the frequency of every character in juxtaposition to that of every other character.
It was a mammoth task, performed without the aid of computers. In addition, during the years surrounding World War II, writing materials were hard to come by.
Kober recorded her detailed analysis on index cards, which she made from the backs of old greetings cards, library checkout slips, and the inside covers of examination books.
By hand, she painstakingly cut more than 180,000 tiny index cards, using cigarette cartons as her filing system’ (ibid).

Alice Kober

 As a result of her hard work, she ‘spotted groups of symbols that appeared throughout the inscriptions – groups that would start the same, but end in consistently different ways. That was the breakthrough. Kober now knew that Linear B was an inflected language, with word endings that shifted according to use’ (ibid). Despite her marvellous achievement and the fact that she was ‘on the verge of deciphering Linear B’ (ibid), misfortune fell on her before she could complete the work. Alice Kober ‘fell ill, suddenly, and died soon after. The cause of her death is not known for sure, but it may well have been a form of cancer. It was 1950, and she was 43’ (ibid). At the point, where Kober ‘had correctly deciphered around one third of the Linear B characters’ (ibid), the mission was left for the third person – Michael Ventris.

For reading the text in full: http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2013/08/26/discovery-and-deciphiering-of-the-crete-inscriptions-liner-b/

Sir Arthur Evans and Linear B

British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans 'also discovered a number of parallels between the Cypriot script, which had been deciphered, and Linear B (newly discovered by his excavation at the Palace of Knossos in Crete). This indicated that the language represented by Linear B was an ancient form of Greek, but he wasn’t prepared to accept this, being convinced that Linear B was used to write Minoan, a language unrelated to Greek.
In 1939, a large number of clay tablets inscribed with Linear B writing were found at Pylos on the Greek mainland, much to the surprise of Evans, who thought Linear B was used only on Crete’ (http://www.omniglot.com/writing/linearb.htm).

With the hindsight that has been available after the deciphering of Linear B, now the puzzlement Evans faced can be explained as following: ‘Linear B was used between about 1500 and 1200 BC to write a form of Greek known as Mycenaean, named after Mycenae, where Agamemnon is said to have ruled’ (ibid). It is said that Mycenaean ‘adapted the Linear A alphabet to allow them to write down their own language, and that the language spoken in Crete at least by the rulers and their officials after 1450 BC was Greek, lending further credence to the theory that the island was conquered by the Mycenaeans’ (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A765146). In the meantime, Linear A was used by the previous rules of Crete, who built the palace of Knossos but ‘all attempts to decipher the Linear A texts have failed’ (ibid) because nobody knows the language in its spoken form. Sir Arthur Evans died in 1941 at the age of 90, before Linear B was deciphered. Evans ‘is constantly admired for his intuition, his creative imagination and his profound scholarship. It is to him that we owe the discovery of the marvellous Minoan Civilisation, which until his time was only dimly reflected in Greek Mythology’ (http://archpropplan.auckland.ac.nz/virtualtour/knossos/22more.htm).

Sir Arthur Evans

For reading the text in full: http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2013/08/26/discovery-and-deciphiering-of-the-crete-inscriptions-liner-b/

Sir Arthur Evans and the discovery of Minoan script

The palace of Knossos in Crete was excavated by British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans in 1900. The excavation also ‘discovered a large number of clay tablets inscribed with mysterious symbols’ (http://www.omniglot.com/writing/linearb.htm) and Evans ‘dubbed the inscriptions and the language they represented as “Minoan”’ (ibid) because he believed that ‘he had discovered the palace of King Minos, together with the Minotaur’s labyrinth’ (ibid), told in the Greek mythology.

Sir Arthur Evans was born in 1851, in Nash Mills, England. He was ‘the son of the famous prehistorian Sir John Evans’ (http://sirarthurevans.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/biography/), and was ‘educated at Harrow School, Brasenose College, the University of Oxford’ (http://archpropplan.auckland.ac.nz/virtualtour/knossos/22more.htm) in between 1870 and 1874. He ‘travelled across Europe for many years’ (http://sirarthurevans.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/biography/) before he was ‘appointed Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum’ (ibid) in 1884. His work in the Museum did not prevent him from further travelling and ‘from 1893 onwards his interests shifted to Greece and especially Crete’ (ibid). This shift seems to be triggered by his interest in languages as well for ‘Evans visited Crete for the first time in 1894 in order to study and decipher the unknown script that could be made out on seal stones, he also purchased about quarter of the site. A year later he published the results in Cretan Pictographs and Pre-Phoenician Script (http://archpropplan.auckland.ac.nz/virtualtour/knossos/22more.htm).

The Palace of Knossos

Political situation also backed up his further researches and enabled him to conduct a massive excavation at Knossos ‘when the island had been declared an independent State’ (ibid) in 1900. The excavation at the site continued until 1931. As for the excavation, it is said that ‘it proved necessary to preserve and restore the monuments that were being uncovered’ (ibid) from the early stage, but the method of restoration Evans took ‘has received much criticism since it introduced materials foreign to Minoan architecture’ (ibid). As for deciphering of the discovered inscriptions, Evans made a certain achievement in his life time:

‘He realised that the inscriptions represented three different writing systems: a "hieroglyphic" script, Linear A and Linear B.
The hieroglphic script appears only on seal stones and has yet to be deciphered. Linear A, also undeciphered, is thought to have evolved from the hieroglyphic script, and Linear B probably evolved from Linear A, though the relationship between the two scripts is unclear.
Evans figured out that short lines in Linear B texts were word dividers. He also deciphered the counting system and a number of pictograms, which led him to believe that the script was mainly pictographic' (http://www.omniglot.com/writing/linearb.htm).

For reading the text in full:  http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2013/08/26/discovery-and-deciphiering-of-the-crete-inscriptions-liner-b/

Baruch Spinoza's excommunication from the Jewish community

Baruch Spinoza's inclination for free thoughts represented by Descartes and his conflicts against Jewish orthodox community cast a shadow upon his relationship with his own family, especially when his father died in 1654. It is said that he was brought to a legal battle against his sister Rebekah, who tried to ‘block his inheritance’ (http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/philosophers/spinoza.html), and although he could win the court case, he must have acknowledged the situation where he was ‘almost completely cast off by his family’ (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14217a.html). Due to avoid further troubles within the Jewish community, he decided to ‘leave and move in with Franz Van den Enden’ (http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/philosophers/spinoza.html), who could offer a teaching post in in his own school. During this teaching period, it is said that Spinoza ‘perfected himself in Latin and continued his philosophical investigations by the study of St. Augustine, the Stoics, Scholasticism… , the philosophy of the Renaissance and that of some modern writers, especially of Hobbes’ (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14217a.html).

 

Ironically, however Spinoza deeply engaged into cultivating from modern philosophical fashions and social thoughts, the community he was surrounded retained its conservative nature, at the least, or presumably even tightened. It is reported that ‘many problems concerning unbelief arose within and around the Portuguese Jewish community of Amsterdam’ (http://books.google.com/books?id=TWCOLdhcwEIC&pg=PA425&lpg=PA425&dq=27+July+1656+spinoza+excommunicated&source=bl&ots=vv2sa-bSqF&sig=sdz0DFvo8-qm8IjxZGLNmIAx5iA&hl=en&ei=J2LfTpSlN-7DmQXapqHwBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CFcQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=27%20July%201656%20spinoza%20excommunicated&f=false, p. 425) in around 1655 and it did not take long before these problems took a form of visible and physical action.

On 27 July 1656, the rabbis of the Jewish community in Amsterdam issued the proclamation of the excommunication against Baruch Spinoza. According to the web source above, the proclamation was issued because of ‘the “abominable heresies he practiced and taught”. These heresies were presumably the following: (1) denial of the immortality of the soul, (2) denial of the divinity of the Law, and (3) the view that the God exists only philosophically’ (ibid). Practically, the proclamation prohibited Spinoza to make any kind of communication with other members of the community (http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/philosophers/spinoza_curse.html) and soon afterward, it extended to expel him from living in Amsterdam.

Baruch Spinoza

 

For reading the text in full: http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/the-excommunication-of-benedict-baruch-spinoza/

Benedict (Baruch) de Spinoza, his Jewish background

Benedict de Spinoza is one of the most influential philosophers in the history of Western thoughts and is recognised as one of the pioneers the Existentialism. He was born to a Jewish family exiled from Portugal to Amsterdam, Holland in his parents’ generation (http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2010/03/17/maranos-ancestors-of-spinoza-the-philosopher/).

 

When he was born to a family of Jewish merchants in Amsterdam on 24 November 1632, he was ‘originally called Baruch, a name that he later translated into its Latin equivalent Benedict’ (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14217a.htm ). His father, Michael de Spinoza, was ‘a prosperous merchant and Warden of both the synagogue and the Amsterdam Jewish school’ (http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/philosophers/spinoza.html) and his mother, Hana Debora, was Michael’s second wife. It is also known that his father Michael married a third wife called Hester de Espinosa in 1641, when Baruch was about eight years old.

In his early years, Baruch studied at the Amsterdam Jewish school, where he showed ‘rapid progress in Hebrew and the study of the Talmud, and his teachers, especially Rabbi Saul Levi Morteira, had the greatest hopes of his future’ (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14217a.htm), in accordance with his father’s wish, to make him a Rabbi.

 Rabbi Saul Levi Morteira

It is uncertain how and when young Baruch began to divert from his firmly established reputation as a hopeful for becoming a Rabbi and accounts from biographers describing the period from 1651 to 1654 occasionally do not match coherently. By ignoring some subtle differences in these descriptions, important things that occurred in Spinoza’s life can be summed up in the following three; (1) by 1651, he could hardly get on with the Jewish community and ‘he was looked upon with suspicion by orthodox Jews’ (ibid), (2) he came across with the philosophy of Rene Descartes, and (3) he has acquainted with a private school manager called Franz van den Enden, who was also known as ‘ex-Jesuit and freethinker’ (ibid).
 

 

For reading the text in full: http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/the-excommunication-of-benedict-baruch-spinoza/

A short biography of Henri de Bourbon

Additionally, it would be interesting to have a look at the situation that surrounded the actual lords, who may have contributed for William Shakespeare to establish three character lords in his play Love's Labour's Lost. As the following web site sums up, these French nobles -  the Baron (the Due) de Biron (or Berowne), the Due de Longueville and The Due de Mayenne (or General D’Aumont) - were ‘involved in a historical struggle between Henry of Navarre… and the Catholic League’ (

http://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/shakespeare/lllost1.html). To summarise the complex situation, it would be beneficial and efficient to have a look at a short biography of the key person: Henri de Bourbon.

Henri ‘was the son of Antoine de Bourbon and Jeanne d’Albret. On her death he succeeded to the kingdom of Navarre (1572). He took leadership of the Huguenot (Protestant) party in 1569. His marriage in 1572 with Marguerite de Valois was the occasion for the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day. Henri saved his life by abjuring Protestantism, but in 1576 he escaped from his virtual imprisonment at court and returned to Protestantism. When in 1584 Henri III named him heir presumptive, the Catholic League, headed by Henri 3rd Duc de Guise refused to recognize him and persuaded Henri III to send an army to force his conversion. In the resulting “War of the Three Henries,” Henry de Navarre defeated Henri III at Coutras (1587) but came to the king’s support in the troubles of 1588, and after Henri III’s death (1589) defeated the League forces at Arques (1589) and Ivrey (1590); he was unable to enter Paris until 1594, after he had abjured Protestantism… His war with Spain, the ally of the League, ended in 1598 with the Treaty of Vervins. In 1598 he also established religious toleration through the Edict of Nantes… In 1600 he married Marie de’ Medici, having had his earlier marriage annulled… –Columbia-Viking desk encyclopedia, 1953’ (http://www.lepg.org/people.htm).

Henri de Bourbon

For reading the text in full:  http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/three-character-lords-in-loves-labours-lost/

Lord Longaville and Dumain in W. Shakespeare's 'Love's Labour's Lost'

Similarly, to the origin of lord Biron - a character in a Shakespearean play Love's Labour's Lost - both following sources name ‘A Duc de Longueville’ (http://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/shakespeare/lllost1.html) or ‘the Due de Longueville’ (http://hudsonshakespeare.org/Shakespeare%20Library/Character%20Directory/CD_LLL.htm) as the sole candidate for the model of lord Longaville, the character. Both agree that he was also a general of (or an aide to) Henri de Bourbon and latter adds he was ‘a well-known figure in the Wars of Religion’ (ibid). Meanwhile, the latter further argues on the possible model for another lord, Dumain, as following:

The Due de Longueville

‘The Due de Mayenne, well known in Shakespeare’s London for his role in the French Wars of Religion, is usually thought to have provided the name Dumaine.  Unlike the originals of Longaville and Berowne, he was not an aide to the historical King of Navarre (Henri de Bourbon); rather, he was a principal enemy of the insurgent monarch, but this inconsistency would probably not have bothered either the playwright or his audience. An alternative, the less notable General D’Aumont, who was an aide to the King of Navarre at the time, has been proposed’ (ibid).

On the contrary, another source that deals with historical documents relating to Anthony Bacon, brother to the famous writer Francis, gives a different story, which says ‘The names of the three Lords are taken directly from the passport of Anthony when he was living in the Navarre territory (1583-92). The names are signed Dumain, Longaville, Biron(Berowne)’ (http://www.sirbacon.org/links/anthony_bacon.htm).

For reading the text in full: http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/three-character-lords-in-loves-labours-lost/

Armand de Gontaunt, the Baron de Biron and Love's Labour's Lost by W. Shakespeare

Navarre is the name of a region where the play - Love's Labour's Lost by William Shakespeare - takes place and the region was an independent kingdom in northern Spain and southern France in the sixteenth century. However, during the century, ‘Spain annexed most of Navarre’ (http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/xLoveLab.html) in 1515 and eventually ‘in 1589, France annexed the rest of the kingdom’ (ibid).

By narrowing the range of time and place to the kingdom of Navarre in the sixteenth century, and replacing the fictional king Ferdinand in the play to Henri de Bourbon, the historical King of Navarre since 1572, who later became Henri IV of France, some candidates, who might have provided the bases for establishing the play's character lords, can be found; Armand de Gontaut, the Baron (Due) de Biron (Berowne), A Duc (the Due) de Longueville and The Due de Mayenne (or the General D’Aumont).

As for the model for lord Biron, plural sources agree to see the Baron (the Due) de Biron (or Berowne) as the sole candidate. One source says he was a French Protestant general, ‘who was a principal adviser to the historical King of Navarre (Henri de Bourbon)’ (http://hudsonshakespeare.org/Shakespeare%20Library/Character%20Directory/CD_LLL.htm), whilst another source basically says the same with adding his personal name Armand de Gontaut, who was Henri’s ‘military leader’ (http://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/shakespeare/lllost1.html) and ‘died in battle in 1592’ (ibid).

Armand de Gontaut

In addition, looking at biographic information of Henri de Bourbon, the King of Navarre, could provide a plausible explanation for the death of the Baron de Biron, because if he was serving for the King, he could go into the battle of Craon, which took place on May 1592 between his king, Henri IV, and Spain, the alley of the Catholic League. The result of the battle also gives more likelihood for the death of Biron, an important figure for Henri’s side, because it ended up ‘carrying a brilliant victory’ (http://www.multilingualarchive.com/ma/frwiki/en/Bataille_de_Craon) to the side of the League.

To read the text in full: http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/three-character-lords-in-loves-labours-lost/

'Love's Labour's Lost' - basic info

Love’s Labour’s Lost is a play written by William Shakespeare. It is said that the play ‘was first printed in 1658’ (http://www.william-shakespeare.info/shakespeare-play-loves-labours-lost.htm) and was written relatively in the early days of the author’s writing career. It is also pointed out that the play is ‘the first play printed under the Bard’s name’ (http://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/shakespeare/lllost1.html) and it contains some ‘signs of early composition’ (ibid), although the play is also known for its complex use of language that ‘includes considerable punning and rhyming – more rhyming than any other Shakespeare play’ (ibid). As for its story’s historical background, the former simply says the play ‘is not based on any historical events or people’ (http://www.william-shakespeare.info/shakespeare-play-loves-labours-lost.htm). However, it would not be so difficult to find some clues that can connect the story and its historical background by conducting researches especially focusing on some characters’ names in the play, for example: Biron, Logaville and Dumain.

These three characters are described as ‘lords attending on the King’ (http://www.sacred-texts.com/sks/lll/lll.htm) in the Dramatis Personae section of the play. Their names are usually found just below the name of Ferdinand, another character who is described as ‘king of Navarre’ (ibid) and this normally implies that the ‘King’ three characters attend to is the ‘king’ listed just above them, in this case Ferdinand, whose name is also put on the top of the list.

William Shakespeare

To read more... http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/three-character-lords-in-loves-labours-lost/

Augustus's succession problems up to the year of Ovid's banishment

Augustus's daughter Julia’s disgrace and banishment in 2 B, C. were followed by further misfortunes and grieves that fell upon both of Julia’s sons through her marriage to Agrippa. It is said that ‘Lucius Caesar, on his way to Spain in AD 2 fell ill at Marseilles and died… (then) Gaius Caesar, died of wounds on his way back from the east in AD 4’ (http://books.google.co.jp/books?id=8C2huNvRQOQC&pg=PA21&lpg=PA21&dq=Agrippa+Postumus+julia+younger&source=bl&ots=WckE4lc4r3&sig=A%E2%80%93Xtl5Hz469ybR8cPAX6xytuT0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=s2RyUdPoAoK3kAW8jIGYCA&sqi=2&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Agrippa%20Postumus%20julia%20younger&f=false). Having lost all his realistic male heirs from his daughter Julia, Augustus arranged for Agrippina the Elder, daughter of Agrippa and Julia, to marry Germanicus, a nephew of Tiberius, who had been allowed to return from Rhodes in AD 2 to be adopted by the emperor, together with Agrippa Postumus, in AD 4. Despite the latter was the sole surviving son between Agrippa and disgraced Julia, he ‘was never seriously considered’ (ibid) to be a candidate for Augustus’s successor, presumably because he was born on ‘after 26 June’ (http://www.livius.org/vi-vr/vipsanius/agrippa_postumus.html) of 12 B. C., probably after his father’s death that took place in the same year. Though he managed to be adopted, his good fortune did not last long and it was followed by being sent to exile within a couple of years and he ended up to receive a decree of ‘eternal exile’ in AD 8, the year in question.

Ovid was relatively a less important figure in comparison with those who had to face cruel punishments sentenced by Augustus in between AD 6 and AD 8. Along with Agrippa Postumus mentioned above, whose sister Julia, who is usually called Julia the Younger to avoid confusion with her mother – Julia the disgraced – ‘was convicted of adultery’ (ibid) and banished in AD 8, whilst her husband, ‘Lucius Aenilius Paullus, was put to death for conspiracy against Augustus’ (http://www.poemhunter.com/ovid/biography/).

Julia the Younger

For reading the text in full: http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2013/07/08/ovids-banishment-and-the-julian-marriage-laws/