Is It Too Late To Explain?
I stole this from here.

"There was a clear fountain, with water like silver... Hither came one day the youth, fatigued with hunting, heated and thirsty. He stooped down to drink, and saw his own image in the water; he thought it was some beautiful water-spirit living in the fountain. He stood gazing with admiration at those bright eyes, those locks curled like the locks of Bacchus or Apollo, the rounded cheeks, the ivory neck, the parted lips, and the glow of health and exercise over all. He fell in love with himself...

It fled at the touch, but returned again after a moment and renewed the fascination. He could not tear himself away; he lost all thought of food or rest while he hovered over the brink of the fountain gazing upon his own image. His tears fell into the water and disturbed the image. As he saw it depart, he exclaimed, "Stay, I entreat you! Let me at least gaze upon you, if I may not touch you." With this, and much more of the same kind, he cherished the flame that consumed him, so that by degrees be lost his colour, his vigour, and the beauty which formerly had so charmed the nymph Echo.

He pined away and died; and when his shade passed the Stygian river, it leaned over the boat to catch a look of itself in the waters... They prepared a funeral pile and would have burned the body, but it was nowhere to be found; but in its place a flower, purple within, and surrounded with white leaves, which bears the name and preserves the memory of Narcissus."

But just before he died, he spoke these words: "And lo! Hark! Avast ye! Were I to live but another couple thousand years or so, verily would I partake of a blog, to set in print words of mine own, to chronicle such things as the matter I didst eat for breakfast or how that woman at my job, yea verily and forsooth, is quite the bitch. And hearken! If'n I shouldst thus blog, there shouldst yea verily be a scale for me named, ranging from I to X (if I'm Roman... if I'm Greek, then use whatever numbers they used... or the Arabs, use their numbers. Those people can really count), including decimal increments thereof. This scale shalt affirm the extent to which a blogger shall have his head thoroughly lodged yea verily up his own ass. A perfect score shall reflect (har har) the height of self-referentialism, a blog-post completely without regard to anything or anyone outside the blogger's personal experience. So yea verily spakest I and so yea verily shall it be, for ever and ever, amen. Peace out."

So you see, the Scale is not a trivial affectation easily dismissed. It's an exhortation from on high. How "on high" depends on how you rank Greek and/or Roman demi-gods on your cosmological scale. For me they're above the Persian pantheon (obviously... who takes them seriously?), but not quite as high as the Hindu. It's the Kama Sutra that puts them over the top.

And how come all the Greek and Roman gods talk like a bunch of Victorians? I think the Victorians, for all their reputation as stuck up and Godly, had a dark, lusty pagan streak. Why else would they preserve and expand on all these things? If it weren't for the chastity belts, I think I'd really like to party with those people.



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 10.0


Pops

- posted by Pops @ 2:09 PM