Who is this? and What is here?

I have been inspired today by the words of two writers on this platform, one who I know, and the other who I don’t know.

Both of what they wrote gave me pause to consider interrupting my more serious retellings of the ancient world and write a bit of whimsey. Not that their work was whimsical in a less than admirable sense; indeed, it was serious in that it was personal and moving. My fellow freedom warrior and dystopian-fiction master, , wrote a raw account of the simple pleasure in life of finding cover under an old caravan to protect he and his wife from an approaching wild storm. The other, a poet, , wrote of how their method writing allows them to feel all the emotions of their characters which often lent itself to an exhaustive experience.

I pondered why I write what I write, and ask myself why I don’t occasionally offer something off my familiar and beaten track. I do have other historical and literary interests.

I am currently immersed in a non-fiction work which I aim to publish in book form next year. In addition, I am putting together an article on a controversial topic - it should not be controversial, but in this day and age of surveillance by telecommunication, it sadly is.

So, here is some whimsey from an ancient historian who dreams of the greatness of Rome, the grandeur of her achievements, and golden eras lost to time.

As I observe the world unfolding around us in a chaotic fashion, I find myself moving between sadness, rage and amusement. Funny that we can feel all of these emotions in the space of a few moments in time. Yet, is it really surprising, given we are living through an extraordinarily tumultuous time in history?

But, how could we possibly know that? History is an enigma to most of us. We only know what we have been given access to, after all. And much of that is based on oral storytelling and myths handed down from our ancestral lineage.

Do I doubt my own field of study?

Not in the sense of its sheer wonder and magnitude. Nor in the wondrous works of historical fiction and poetry we have been gifted. Certainly not in the sense of the many translated primary sources which were once scribed upon olde world manuscripts, and of inscriptions, coins, pottery, funerary evidence, buildings and monuments which relay the existence of those who were here before us.

I just wish we had more.

Sadness resides in the loss of what we once had.

Rage gives itself away through the frustration of unrelenting questions of how did we arrive where we currently are given we have the guidebook of what to do and not to do?

Amusement derives from the acceptance of knowing that we humans exist in a vacuum of repetition, and all I can do is navigate my way through the quagmire by reading and enjoying the exploits of those who built the magnificence of the West, and hope that one day, a generation not yet born, will discover the tools to revive it.

Aside from a love for ancient Rome, the tales of knights and ladies entice my imagination. So much so that for four years I volunteered at a local annual Medieval Festival, dressed in fourteenth century garb and attending to the inquiries of visitors. Once, a few of us were invited to share a Royal Box as we enjoyed prime viewing position of the joust! If a knight passed by as we strolled around the grounds, we stopped while they offered their quiet but chivalrous gesture of, “M’Lady,” to which we gently bowed our heads to respond with, “M’ Lord.”

Oh, what joy it was to pretend for just a weekend that I lived in another time, which to the history-tragic seems a golden age of beauty and intrigue. Clearly, there was the other darker side of poverty and barbarity, but every time has its dark and its light. Ours is no different.

And so it leads me to recall one of my favourite poems, the subject of which is a fair maiden, set in the golden age of Chivalry - The Lady of Shalott, by Lord Tennyson:

Under tower and balcony,

By garden-wall and gallery,

A gleaming shape she floated by,

A corse between the houses high,

Silent into Camelot.