Citius, Altius, Fortius
On the Olympiad:
I. Prelude Heroes and Hero-Worship.
Though it seems the Bush administration is determined to outdo the Reich of Wilhelm II as most folly-prone in history (aren’t you glad of that?), thereby returning Barbara Tuchman’s Gun’s of August to the best-seller list, I am quite sure that Sir George Frazer’s The Golden Bough should be the most important book of the 21st Century. Though published in 1890, the importance of the book for these times cannot be overstated.
I should say begun in 1890, because the first wonderful thing about this work is that Frazer kept writing for 32 years, reaching 12 volumes. The subject was engrossing and deep, and the man was up to the task. Then, –wonder of wonders,– by 1922 Frazer thought the subject so important to the general reader that he cut it down to a single volume (which you may purchase from Amazon, to your left).
In Frazer’s own words:
“The object of this book is, by meeting these conditions, to offer a fairly probable explanation of the priesthood of Nemi. . . The strange rule of this priesthood has no parallel in classical antiquity, and cannot be explained from it. . . In this sacred grove there grew a certain tree round which at any time of the day, and probably far into the night, a grim figure might be seen to prowl. In his hand he carried a drawn sword, and he kept peering warily about him as if at every instant he expected to be set upon by an enemy. He was a priest and a murderer; and the man for whom he looked was sooner or later to murder him and hold the priesthood in his stead. Such was the rule of the sanctuary. A candidate for the priesthood could only succeed to office by slaying the priest, and having slain him, he retained office till he was himself slain by a stronger or a craftier.
The post which he held by this precarious tenure carried with it the title of king; but surely no crowned head ever lay uneasier, or was visited by more evil dreams, than his. For year in, year out, in summer and winter, in fair weather and in foul, he had to keep his lonely watch, and whenever he snatched a troubled slumber it was at the peril of his life.
In the course of his researches he dwells on the origins of magic and religion. Of course, writing in the twilight of Victoria, Frazer does not say all he could have about the origins of “virgin-birth” myths, and just why the Feast of St. John’s Eve happens to fall on the day of pagan midsummer rituals. Nevertheless, he makes clear that, as far back as you go, there were leaders who made promises; and when the promises failed to come true, they made excuses; and when the excuses failed to satisfy, then science (in the general sense of application of a reasoning faculty other than “reading the entrails”) and humanity, as a whole, moved forward.
Thank you George W., you cathartic SOB.
Thanks to the French, always eager to glorify language (provided it is not Anglaise) we have this as the motto of the jeux Olympiques:
Citius, Altius, Fortius.
Swifter, Higher, Stronger.
Or, as Curtis Mayfield, –another of my heroes along with Sir George– put it:
Keep on Pushin’
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