A World of Gods and Monsters – Part Two

'If you could me lendtill my pascol's kondyl, sahib, and the price of a plate of poultice. Punked. With best apolojigs and merrymoney thanks to self for all the clerricals and again begs guerdon for bistris-pissing on your bunificence. Well wiggy-wiggywagtail, and how are you, yaggy? With a capital Tea for Thirst. From here Buvard to dear Picuchet. Blott.

[Ensouling Female Sustains Agonising Overman.]'

- James Joyce, (1882 – 1941), 'Finnegans Wake'

Pierre Hadot, (1922 – 2010), writing on Greek and Roman philosophy, claimed that an adjustment in perspective may perchance come to pass in our reading and interpretation of the philosophical works of antiquity 'when we consider them from the point of view of the practice of spiritual exercises [askesis]. Philosophy then appears in its original aspect: not as a theoretical construct, but as a method for training people to live and to look at the world in a new way. It is an attempt to transform mankind. Contemporary historians of philosophy are today scarcely inclined to pay attention to this aspect, although it is an essential one. The reason for this is that, in conformity with a tradition inherited from the Middle Ages … they consider philosophy to be purely abstract-theoretical activity'. In ancient philosophy, on the other hand, such spiritual exercises 'have as their goal the transformation of our vision of the world, and the metamorphosis of our being'. Similarly, one way into the text of 'Finnegans Wake' might well be to read it as a kind of spiritual exercise (askesis) … I would not say the best way, for in my view it is primarily a comic masterpiece, but then again, humour and laughter could be a spiritual exercise in itself.

What I saw was equal ecstasy:

One universal smile it seemed of all things.

… wrote Dante Alighieri, (1265 – 1321), upon imagining the sight of Paradise.

Socrates (470 – 399 BCE) endures as the paragon of such spiritual exercises; maieutics, as it is known; the Socratic method, the method of elenchus, a kind of collaborative disputatious exchange among individuals, grounded upon the asking of and the answering of questions in order to provoke critical thinking and to extract ideas and underlying presumptions; a dialectical method, incorporating a discussion in which the defence of one point of view is interrogated; one participant may lead another into contradicting themselves in some manner, thereby undermining the defender's point. It is referred to as midwifery by Socrates in the 'Thaetetus' of Plato, (428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BCE), because it is employed to bring out definitions implicit in the beliefs of the person participating in the dialogue, or to assist them in the enlarging of their understanding; he compares himself to a midwife, for he himself is not the wise one, but what he can do is assist others to give birth to their own immanent wisdom. Socrates claims that it his duty to guide others towards the knowledge they possess already, similarly to how it is a midwife's duty to guide a woman through childbirth. As Socrates stated:

'I have this in common with the midwives: I am sterile in point of wisdom, and the reproach which has often been brought against me, that I question others but make no reply myself about anything, because I have no wisdom in me, is a true reproach; and the reason of it is this: the god compels me to act as midwife, but has never allowed me to bring forth. I am, then, not at all a wise person myself'.

Philo of Alexandria, (c. 20 BCE – c. 50 CE), presented us with a more formal description of what these exercises demand of us:

1. Research, (zetesis).

'Minerva of Wisdom', Elihu Vedder, 1897

2. Investigation, (skepsis).

Paul Delvaux, 'Astronomers', 1961

3. Reading, (anagnosis).

Edward Hopper, 'Interior, model reading', 1925

4. Listening, (akroasis).

'Listening to Schumann', 1883, Fernand Khnopff

5. Self-attention, (prosoche).

'Woman Standing In Front Of A Mirror', 1841, Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg

6. Self-mastery, (enkrateia).

Ilya Repin, 'A Nun', 1878

7. Indifference to indifferent things.

Jean Beraud, 'The Drinkers', 1908

Prosoche, usually translated as self-attention, is an interesting one; what does it mean? Certainly not self-absorption, which is never a good thing, and certainly not in the context of spiritual exercises; but further, self-attention may be misleading as a translation of that which is expressed by prosoche; in part because of a modern propensity to regard such attention as directed towards something designated as the self. Self-attention rather carries the sense of attention to how one lives and to the entirety of one's life; it is an ethical stance that endeavours to answer what was the fundamental ethical question for the ancient world: how ought one to live? For example, as Socrates asks, in Plato's 'Republic':

'Is the just or the unjust the happier? To this we reply, that every art has an end and an excellence or virtue by which the end is accomplished. And is not the end of the soul happiness, and justice the excellence of the soul by which happiness is attained? Justice and happiness being thus shown to be inseparable, the question whether the just or the unjust is the happier has disappeared'.

A somewhat alternate sense of the ethical is expressed by Aristotle's, (384 – 322 BCE), use of the term eudaimonia, (literally good spirit), which is often rendered as human flourishing; it is the good constituted of all goods; a capacity that is sufficient for living well; it is perfection in the matter of virtue; the supply, the support, the assistance sufficient for a living creature and to be called upon when needed. However, although Aristotle holds to the opinion that everyone concurs that eudaimonia is the highest good for human beings, there is considerable difference of opinion on the kind of life that counts as doing and living well; that is to say, eudaimon; which makes one wonder of what use is the concept? As he writes in the 'Nichomachean Ethics':

'Verbally there is a very general agreement; for both the general run of men and people of superior refinement say that it is eudaimonia, and identify living well and faring well with being happy; but with regard to what eudaimonia is they differ, and the many do not give the same account as the wise. For the former think it is some plain and obvious thing like pleasure, wealth or honour'.

That which flourishes and the flourishing itself constitute a good life, and it is this life that is to be the matter of prosoche; the ethos, the character that is the source of one's behaviour, and in addition hexis, the stance or disposition one takes toward others and towards the world. Martin Heidegger, (1889 – 1976), employed the term Verhalten, rendered as comportment, the fundamental stance towards oneself, towards others, and towards the world, seen not as the manner of denoting the specifics of character and comportment, but to the fact that we dwell within such stances. In effect, an ontological issue is thus addressed here, for to describe what we are in this manner is to point at how what we are can be expressed meaningfully in our behaviour, thoughts, and through the use of terms such as ethos, hexis, Verhalten, and stance or disposition. For to endeavour to discourse concerning the relation between what is and what is meaningful is in particular to endeavour to equate meaning with being, and Heidegger adopts a phraseology that includes haben, (having), verhalten, (comporting), verstehen, (understanding) for the purpose of stressing that original, that is to say, without a dominant or unifying idea or theme, comportment or having is for the most part not some kind of calculated, reflective or introspective act of knowing something; rather the phrases he uses denote any way, theoretical, practical, lighthearted, reverential, delicate, mischievous, ironic, or howsoever a person may relate to something, whether to him or herself, or to another, or to an object of nature, or to a relic, an objet d'art, a formula of mathematics, an hypothesis of science, a nightmare, and so on.

Patti Smith, comporting herself towards 'Finnegans Wake', at the Chateau Marmont, Los Angeles

And to a literary text, of course, like 'Finnegans Wake'; the task of philosophy according to Heidegger is to determine what to be means in the case of any of the phrases he adopts and this determination is possible only by understanding or retrieving the precise and fundamental way in which a human being exists and relates to each of them respectively, where this existing and relating are in an important sense logically equivalent. Thus, Heidegger concludes, philosophy's way of relating to its object is 'utterly original and radical', indeed, such that 'even and precisely through the grasping it is what it grasps and grasps what it is'. Since philosophy's object is what to be means in the context of that original comportment, it cannot have, which is to say, understand, or retrieve, its object as it were from the outside; philosophy must rather itself implement or enact, or re-enact, that primary, themeless having, so as to expressly appropriate it.

Which is why I like to apply philosophy to a literary text, given philosophy's way of relating to its object, as Heidegger points out; an utterly original and radical approach to literary criticism. In the 'Night Lessons' episode of 'Finnegans Wake', from which the above quote is taken, we may learn about the logical relation between how sentences are or are not meaningful and what we understand to exist or not to exist; and self-attention can thereby be confined further to mean the self in self-reflection or self-attention to characterise that towards which reflection or attention is directed, that which is selected through usage of the first person I. 'Finnegans Wake' is a text that unfolds and expands, transformed and modified by every reader who strives to master its pecular linguistic quirks, to dwell within its pages, to live with or within its world; whereby reading it is a kind of spiritual exercise requiring a different kind of self-reflection continually assuming the pattern of asking how to read it and why; and through asking such questions, through investigating how these questions have a claim upon our attention, 'Finnegans Wake' emerges as a text to be read by anybody; for spiritual exercises can set one's life upon a type of humorous or ironical stance towards the world; and the Wake's 'Night Lesson' are intended to reconstruct one's central and elementary stance towards oneself, towards others, towards this world in which we find ourselves.

[Ensouling Female Sustains Agonising Overman.]

The reference is of course to Friedrich Nietzsche's, (1844 – 1900), übermensch. Quite a remarkable sentence, in a text that is full of them, perfectly illustrative of the points I have been making up till now, as will be seen once I resume my brief run through 'Also Sprach Zarathustra', begun in Part One. But first, a few words about the phenomena of the rather unfortunate misogynistic stance. Misogyny is everywhere, we are told, which of course is hyperbole, not even in the widest sense of the word, lack of respect for women, is that true, never mind its true sense, hatred of women; yet there is hardly a great writer that has not been accused of misogyny; even James Joyce, three of whose works, 'Exiles', 'Ulysses',and 'Finnegans Wake', give the last word to a woman; no finer example of the misuses and abuses of the word misogyny; but it is certainly there in the history of literature and philosophy; I am about to present some examples. John Milton, (1608 – 1674), in his play 'Samson Agonistes' draws upon the story of that Biblical übermensch Samson, from the Old Testament, (Judges 13 – 16); Samson has been captured by the Philistines, had his hair, the vessel of his strength, cut off, and has been blinded. He discloses how he lost his power because of his desire for Dalila, described as a 'specious monster', and, through such an act, has betrayed God:

Dalila, that specious Monster, my accomplisht snare.

Treason against me?

Thrice she assay'd with flattering prayers and sighs,

And amorous reproaches to win from me

My capital secret, in what part my strength

Lay stor'd, in what part summ'd, that she might know:

Thrice I deluded her, and turn'd to sport

Her importunity, each time perceiving

How openly, and with what impudence

She purpos'd to betray me, and (which was worse

Then undissembl'd hate) with what contempt

She sought to make me Traytor to my self;

Yet the fourth time, when mustring all her wiles,

With blandisht parlies, feminine assaults,

Tongue-batteries, she surceas'd not day nor night

To storm me over-watch't, and wearied out.

At times when men seek most repose and rest,

I yielded, and unlock'd her all my heart,

Who with a grain of manhood well resolv'd

Might easily have shook off all her snares:

But foul effeminacy me yok't

Her Bond-slave; O indignity, O blot

To Honour and Religion! Servil mind

Rewarded well with?servil punishment!

The base degree to which I now am fall'n,

These rags, this grinding, is not yet so base

As was my former servitude, ignoble,

Unmanly, ignominious, infamous,

True slavery, and that blindness worse then this,

That saw not how degeneratly I serv'd.

Max Liebermann, 'Sampson and Delila', 1902

The play centres upon the betrayal of Samson at the hands of his wife Dalila, and creates a negative portrayal of love and love's effects; women, and men's desire for women, are linked to idolatry against God and the idea is presented that there is no possibility for the sacred within the bonds of marital love. And Samson, who is both holy and desirous of Delila, is seduced into betraying the source of his strength, and thus betrays God; consequently emasculated, through his blindness, which became literally so, because of his sexual desires. And the Chorus of the play, after Delila attempts to seduce Samson again, criticises women for being deceptive. Dalila, visting Samson in prison, entreats him for his foregiveness:

I may, if possible, thy pardon find

The easier towards me, or thy hatred less.

First granting, as I do, it was a weakness

In me, but incident to all our sex,

Curiosity, inquisitive, importune

Of secrets, then with like infirmity

To publish them, both common female faults:

Was it not weakness also to make known

For importunity, that is for naught,

Wherein consisted all thy strength and safety?

To what I did thou shewdst me first the way.

But I to enemies reveal'd, and should not.

Nor shouldst thou have trusted that to womans frailty

E're I to thee, thou to thy self was cruel.

Through the reference to 'the common female faults', Milton is bestowing upon Dalila a misogynist picture of women as too much curious and incapable of keeping secrets, similar to Geoffrey Chaucer's, (1343 – 1400), wife of Bath, who relates the story of King Midas and his wife as proof that women cannot keep secrets:

Pardee, we wommen konne no thyng hele;

Witnesse on Myda - wol ye heere the tale?

And this despite the fact that the wife of Bath cites Ovid's 'Metamorphoses' as her source, for in Ovid's story it is not his wife but Midas's slave barber who reveals his humiliating secret.

Palma il Giovane, 'Apollo and Marsyas' (1), second half of the 16th century

Marsyas, having the temerity to compare his music with that of?Apollo, challenges the God to a trial of musical skill, to be refereed by the Muses; Apollo is subsequently awarded the victory, with only one dissenting voice; Midas, happening to be present, contests the decision. Apollo as a consequence just cannot endure such a denerate pair of ears any further, saying that he must have ears of an ass, thereby causing Midas's ears to become those of a?donkey. Midas is understandably deeply discomfited by such an injury to his self-respect, (though it is much worse for Marsyas, who is flayed alive by Apollo for his hubris; how does the notion of hubris relate to that of the übermensch? Must not the übermensch consider it a virtue?), and tries to conceal his misfortune under his headgear, though?of course his barber discovers his secret and is instructed to mention it to no one; but unable to keep the secret he goes out into the meadow, digs a hole in the ground, whispers his story into it, covers it up; but alas a broad bed of reeds at a later time springs up in the meadow, and commences to whisper the story that King Midas has an ass's ears. Midas subsequently kills himself by means drinking ox blood.?

Palma il Giovane, 'Apollo and Marsyas' (2), second half of the 16th century

Samson's arguments against Dalila deliberate upon the proper role of a wife and the superiority of men; the depiction of Dalila, and women, is similar to that in?Milton's 'The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce'; the subjection of women is simply assumed, and Milton grants to the practice his categorical approval; a practice of subjection that is modified by the form of the sexual divisions of labour of the times; whereby a wife is supposed to help a husband, and the husband, regardless of the status of the woman, is supposed to have the superior status. And in blaming Dalila, Samson rationalises his actions and removes the blame from himself; she is an emasculating force; a representation of his past deficiencies and frailties.

There is one thing Milton was right about though, in this play, which is expressed by the Chorus, here serving as the voice of wisdom:

Chorus: Tax not divine disposal, wisest men

Have err'd, and by bad Women been deceiv'd;

And shall again, pretend they ne're so wise.

In?'The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce'?Milton frequently remarks upon how easy it is even for the wisest and soberest of men to be mistaken in their choice of women; indeed, in?his 'Tetrachordon',?Milton depicted Adam as the sole man who could choose the correct mate according to God's command, although it seems to me that he didn't have much to choose from. But the point reminds me of Xanthippe, the supposed shrewish wife of Socrates, (though history may be doing her a disservice), and of a very probaby apocryphal episode whereby Xanthippe was once so enraged with her husband that she took a?chamber pot?and poured it out over the philosopher's head, which, according to the narrative, he accepted unperturbably while expressing the moral: 'After thunder comes the rain'.

'Socrates, his Wives and Alcibiades', Reyer van Blommendael ?

And so to return to 'Also Sprach Zarathustra', (in what follows I am merely the messenger). The main theme in part one of 'Also Sprach Zarathustra' is that the individual stands alone with his fate in his own hands. He can expect no help from others, either in this life or in some future life. He must make himself to coin a phrase to be used by later existentialists. As part one opens we see that Zarathustra has spent ten years on a mountain in meditation; and his companions have been his eagle, a symbol of pride, (hubris?) and his serpent, a symbol of wisdom (how much of that he has acquired you can decide as you make your way through the text). He has now just decided to go into the world of men to teach some of the wisdom that he has acquired during his period of meditation.

Call of the Sky, 1935, Nicholas Roerich

On the way down the mountain, he meets a saint who tells him that the way to help men is to stay away from them and to save them through prayer. Here Nietzsche announces one of his important ideas, that the individual can expect no supernatural help because God is dead.

Zarathustra reaches a town where, upon finding a crowd engaged in watching a tightrope walker perform his act, he says to them, 'I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome'. He explains that man has evolved from apes but that he is still apelike. Man is poisoned by those who teach that salvation is found not in this world but in the next, and by those who teach the Christian ethics of virtue, justice and pity. But the people in the crowd are not ready for Zarathustra's message; rather, they think that he is announcing the tightrope walker's act. Zarathustra reflects that they cannot be taught since they are not ready to take the first step toward learning by recognizing that their present beliefs are false. What Zarathustra must find is those 'who do not know how to live except by going under, for they are those who cross over'.

'Tightrope walker', 1914, August Macke

The tightrope walker falls and is killed. Zarathustra and the corpse are left alone in the market place. Zarathustra then realises that one of his great problems will be to communicate his message to people too indifferent or too stupid to understand him. But his purpose remains firm, 'I will teach man the meaning of their existence – the overman, the lightning out of the dark cloud of man'. Since he cannot teach the multitude, he decides that he will have to select a few disciples who will follow him, 'because they want to follow themselves'.

Throughout the rest of part one Nietzsche expresses a series of more or less disconnected criticisms of the men of his time. Most people are sleepers because sleep robs them of thought, makes them like inanimate objects, and imitates death. Man uses sleep as a means of escape, just as God created the world as a diversion, as an escape from himself.

Another sort of escape is found by accepting the injunction to renounce the body and love the soul. But the soul is only part of the body; and one must love the whole more than one loves any part. Love of the soul to the exclusion of the body is a kind of renunciation of life. Another is the belief that life is full of suffering; so it may be, but the overman will see to it that his is not one of the sufferers. It is war that brings out many of the best qualities in men, Nietzsche argues. 'You should love peace as a means to new wars – and the short peace more than the long. … You say it is the good cause that hallows even war? I say unto you: it is the good war that hallows any cause'.

Arnold Bocklin, 'Der Krieg', 1896

'Your enemy shall ye seek; your war shall ye wage, and for the sake of your thoughts! And if your thoughts succumb, your uprightness shall still shout triumph thereby!

Ye shall love peace as a means to new wars - and the short peace more than the long.

You I advise not to work, but to fight. You I advise not to peace, but to victory. Let your work be a fight, let your peace be a victory!

One can only be silent and sit peacefully when one hath arrow and bow; otherwise one prateth and quarrelleth. Let your peace be a victory!

Ye say it is the good cause which halloweth even war? I say unto you: it is the good war which halloweth every cause.

War and courage have done more great things than charity. Not your sympathy, but your bravery hath hitherto saved the victims'.

- Thus spake Zarathustra.

The state, another escape from reality, is one of the greatest enemies of individualism; for it tells the citizens what to do, how to live; it replaces his or her personality with its own:

'Many too many are born: for the superfluous ones was the state devised!

See just how it enticeth them to it, the many-too-many! How it swalloweth and cheweth and recheweth them!

'On earth there is nothing greater than I: it is I who am the regulating finger of God' - thus roareth the monster. And not only the long-eared and short-sighted fall upon their knees!

Ah! even in your ears, ye great souls, it whispereth its gloomy lies! Ah! it findeth out the rich hearts which willingly lavish themselves!

Yea, it findeth you out too, ye conquerors of the old God! Weary ye became of the conflict, and now your weariness serveth the new idol!

Heroes and honourable ones, it would fain set up around it, the new idol! Gladly it basketh in the sunshine of good consciences,- the cold monster!'

- Thus spake Zarathustra.

Another renunciation of life is dedication to the ideal of chastity. To deny the lust of the flesh is often to affirm the lust of the spirit. Why deny lust? Nietzsche asks. Women are only half human at best, more like cats or cows. What is great is the passion of love between men and women, for all creation is the result of passion. The solution to all of women's problems is child-bearing, and this is the only interest women have in men. A man needs two things, danger and play. His interest in women is that she is 'the most dangerous plaything'. She is the recreation of the warrior … ' Her hope should be that she will bear the overman. Men are merely evil, but women are bad. That is why they are dangerous. Men can overcome them only by subjugating them completely. An old crone agrees with Zarathustra and adds her advice: 'You are going to women? Do not forget the whip!'

Jean-Honore Fragonard, 'Les hasards heureux de 'l'escarpolette', c. 1767

'Ensouling Female Sustains Agonising Overman'. It is here worth dwelling upon that phrase as a spiritual exercise. Nietzsche, virulently anti-Christian, continually adopts a kind of religious stance that we find in the likes of Milton. Christian apologists love Nietzsche as an example of what happens when you reject God and Christian values, he was especially obliging towards them by going insane; and yet what he offered in the place of God and Christian values is something so much similar, albeit without God; for of course Christian values do not stem from God in any case but from the minds of men. (I might add here that all that bluster concerning war only reminds me of the words of Jesus: 'Think?not?that I am?come?to bring?peace?on earth: I came?not?to bring?peace, but a sword' (Matthew 10:34)).

Let us rather adopt the ethical stance of self-attention, or comport ourselves in the Heidegerrian sense towards others and towards the world, to train ourselves, as Hadot advised, to live and to look at the world in a new way, to transform humankind. The ensouling female, to infuse a soul into; to fill with soul, or to dwell in, to animate, as a soul; indeed, contrary to what either Milton or Nietzsche would have us suppose, woman can have a civilising influence upon men, drawing out the best of them, modifying their behaviour in a positive way. This is not to say that we should idealize some immutable concept of womanhood, the kind of idealization that Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, (1749 – 1832, no doubt at some point accused of being a misogynist), expressed thus: 'The eternal feminine draws us on high'.

And 'Sustains Agonising Overman' ... the image is of the overman suffering agony; writhing in pain or anguish; in the throes of death. Nietzsche asks: How should one die? And his answer is only when one has perfected his life; but if one cannot live a perfect life, then it is best to die in battle. Death must come because one wants it. But I would rather say that were the overman instead sustained by an ensouling female perhaps he would come up with a more sensible answer to such a question.

'La mort offre des couronnes au vainqueur du tournoi symbolisme', 1855, Gustave Moreau

Part 1 of 'Also Sprach Zarathustra' concudes with the injunction that through Zarathustra's teaching one should not become merely a disciple and imitator of the prophet, but should learn through him to understand oneself. The section ends on a note that has become familiar:

'DEAD ARE ALL THE GODS: NOW DO WE DESIRE THE SUPERMAN TO LIVE' - Let this be our final will at the great noontide!-'

- Thus spake Zarathustra.

To be continued ...

Notes to 'Finnegans Wake' quotation:

1. Tippoo Sahib, (1753 – 99), Sultan of Mysore, defeated by Wellington.

2. lendtill = lend me; and lentil.

3. pascol = Blaise Pascal, (1623 – 62), French author of 'Pensées' ('fragments of a defense of the Christian religion against free-thinkers') and of 'Lettres a un Provincial' ('a defense of the rigidly moral Jansenist heresy against Jesuit casuistry'); and pascolo (Italian), pasture.

4. kondyl = kondylos (Greek), a knuckle; and Paschal candle, a large, white candle used liturgically in the Western Rites of Christianity.

5. sahib = a respectful title used by the natives of India in addressing an Englishman or other European (= 'Sir'); and sahib (Arabic), friend.

6. poultice = a soft mass of some substance (as bread, meal, bran, linseed, various herbs, etc.), usually made with boiling water, and spread upon muslin, linen, or other material, applied to the skin to supply moisture or warmth, as an emollient for a sore or inflamed part, or as a counter-irritant; and pottage (of lentils; Esau sold birthright for).

7. Punked = punk, to back out, to withdraw one's support, to quit; Punkt (German), period, stop.

8. apolojigs = apology, justification, explanation, or excuse, of an incident or course of action.

9. clerricals = clerical, a cleric, one of a clerical party.

10. guerdon = a reward, requital, or recompense; and pardon.

11. bis- = (Latin), twice, two times; and tris (Latin), thrice, three times; and bistro (Serbian), limpid, lucid, clear.

12. bunificence = beneficence, the manifestation of benevolence or kindly feeling, active kindness; a beneficent gift, deed, or work.

13. wiggy = wearing, or distinguished by, a wig, bewigged; sometimes implying 'extremely grave, formal, or ceremonious'.

14. wagtail = a contemptuous term for a profligate or inconstant woman; hence, a harlot, courtesan.

15. capital Tea = T for Tristan.

16. Buvard to dear Picuchet = Bouvard and Pécuchet, title characters of Flaubert's novel, to which 'Ulysses' was compared by Wyndham Lewis; and Yeats: 'A Vision' 160 (book I, part III, phase 22): 'Flaubert is the supreme literary genius of the phase, and his 'Temptation of St. Anthony' and his 'Bouvard and Pécuchet' are the sacred books of the phase'.

17. Blott = blot, a spot or stain of ink, mud, or other discolouring matter; a disfiguring spot or mark; and Shem's signature at the conclusion of the letter he writes in the 'Night Lessons' chapter (an ejaculation resulting from masturbation).

18. ensouling = ensoul, to infuse a soul into; to fill with 'soul'. Also, to dwell in, animate, as a soul.

19. sustains = sustain, to uphold, back up, give support to (a person's conduct, a cause, a course of action).

20. agonizing = suffering agony; writhing in pain or anguish; in the throes of death.

21. overman = an ideal superior man conceived by Nietzsche as being evolved from the normal human type; loosely, a man of extraordinary power or ability.

'L'éternel Féminin', Paul?Cézanne, 1877