In the Grove of Scholars
So saying, I had traveled but a scant
Distance from where I slept, when opposite
The stream I see a place the which I want
To enter: there a gate on which is writ
“The grove of scholars,” but so rusty it
Appears few people travel there. I see
The same phrase is translated, in Sanskrit
In Latin, in Chinese; it seems to be
Written in every tongue, and most unknown to me.
There is a bridge ahead that brooks the stream,
And so I take it to the other side,
Because I feel it proper to esteem
Good scholarship, though I dare not to hide
My ignorance as one the light denied;
But there is one I want to meet therein
Merely to pay respects, who was a guide
In many books profound and genuine
Of scholarship sublime, though I am not his kin.
The wooden gate upon its axle creaks,
Perhaps because, I notice it, the frame
Is slightly out of plumb; producing squeaks
As I push it—but would it squeak the same
If others as myself, unlettered, came
If only to bestow our just respects
To those whose work our just respects can claim—
The soul its own society selects,
Though with him seen before my rude heart more connects.
Startled, as by the creaking that so long
Has gone unsounded, one comes up to me
As though he almost thinks there something wrong,
Then asks if there is someone I would see.
Out in the verdant grove, full-thronged there be
So many persons peacefully conversing,
Here and there to and fro, all happily
Coming and going, gathering, dispersing,
Doing what scholars do, amongst themselves discoursing.
He takes me by the hand, this patient man
Who gatekeeper has been at scholar’s grove
For eons; like a kind librarian
He takes me to a grassy knoll above
The rest in elevation, where a Jove
Carved out of marble finer than Carrara’s
Glowers above the crowd, through whom we move,
The whole arena like a pleasant terrace,
With garlands decorated, tapestries and arras.
“He whom you seek is there,” then goes to see
If he can interrupt the conversation
Two men hold standing now in front of me,
Making a gesture to me—trepidation
Wells in my heart, that one of my low station
Should come to seek a word with one so great,
Though just to pay respects my motivation
Has been; to tell him I appreciate
His conscientious work, which none can ever hate.
He comes to me; and I apologize
Saying, “Sir Moses, please forgive me for
The interruption of your soul so wise
From it your conversation: I implore
You, please forgive that one inferior
In scholarship, as I myself concede,
Should come to see you as a visitor,
Greatly I’m honored and pleasured indeed
To make your soul’s acquaintance”—so my words proceed.
And he: “My boy, there isn’t any need
For excess courtesy—we’re all the same
Who have crossed over: there is no stampede
Of visitors for me, nor is there shame
In your approaching me; nor further blame
In your poor scholarship, as to belittle
Yourself, for students unified in aim
There’s none superior, though some recital
May make of their accomplishments. Forbear the title.”
And I: “I come to books an ignorant,
As one who only learns but with reluctance,
Being poetic wholly in my slant,
Who, at a time when I met with obstructions
Blocking my path, turned to you for instructions;
Rather, to any book with ‘M.I. Finley’
Upon its binding, and with no compunctions,
I turned, if comprehending only thinly
As into study of the past I did begin me.
“As one so wholly ignorant, I needed
To know what evidence and models there
Existed, lest I take a story ceded
By someone, and one finds them everywhere,
For whose distortions I don’t really care,
Nor trust—lest in their pomp they pull the wool
Over my eyes, and I, as unaware,
Heed them uncritical, without a tool
Whereby I might protest, thereby unwitting fool.
“I read that I might not be gullible
To all the false distortions of the past,
The use and misuse, as your words did tell
Of history, which ever is recast
To fill our present needs, the which when past
It is recast again: your careful thought
Showed me the way, because there is a vast
Supply of information, how one ought
Evaluate, assess, lest they be wrongly caught.”
And he: “All scholarship, all words are biased,
This I but tried to show; yet I retain
For all of my forbears, teachers, the highest
Esteem, from all of whom our thought can gain
As we, in our self-efforts, our minds train
To sculpt our own awareness, our own view—
Then all our scholarship will not be vain,
But insomuch that people, not a few,
Prefer to be spoon-fed, there’s little we can do.”
And I: “Your area of expertise
Is denigrated greatly since you left
The world, a decade now since your decease,
Though we remaining have not been bereft
Your insight and your knowledge, cautious, deft
As left us in your books: for people feel
Hellenic studies in themselves a cleft
Against an understanding of the ‘real’
History of the world, propounding it with zeal.”
And he: “I make no claim that what I chose
To spend my life investigating, has
Innate superiority; but those
Who try to paint that Athens merely was
Refurbished egyptologies, amass
Critical errors in the multitudes
In forwarding their theses, if because
The picture they present so much excludes
Of actual evidence, with them which nor colludes.
“Athens has claimed so much attention, not
Because she was a better ‘city-state,’
All others worthy but to be forgot;
But rather, as she left behind a great
Surplus of texts, which her story relate
In depth, detail, and with divergent views,
Which scholarship (forgive me if I prate)
As one of many tools, prefers to use,
Of all available the hardest to refuse.
“Similarly,” said he, “ideas which
Were given birth in Athens, have devolved
Into the modern usage they enrich
Without an interruption; problems solved,
Or with which Athens early was involved
But failed to solve, we see within her framing—
Unfortunate, to some, no less absolved
Respect for evidence in their disclaiming,
But that is politics. Not any names I’m naming.”
And I: “There is a wealth of scholarship
Of sundry climes, that has begun to burgeon,
But I am fearful lest our standards slip,
With so much new authority emerging
In fields of study that had long been virgin.
World scholarship, inquiry has risen,
Yet carefully as we would choose a surgeon
We must historians, lest their misprision,
Their sloppy scholarship, no less construct a prison.”
And he: “I always tried to make it clear
How much was known, from whence I had derived
My arguments, or when I’d made a mere
Guess from the silence; that which is received
May have been falsified or misconceived
No less than any other source—we must
Be critical, that we be not deceived,
Regurgitating stories we can’t trust,
Perhaps for our agendas which may not be just.”
And I: “So far from any kind of standard,
Critical apparatus all dismissed,
Have our inquirers and scholars wandered,
That your authority indeed is missed;
And your sagacity, which did resist
The specious argument from every corner,
While scholars now adumbrate but a list
Of what they’ve read, of things culled the adorner
Without new synthesis: our world is much the mourner.”
And he: “I didn’t publish much in youth,
But tried to learn my subject. Those few books
That I have left behind, all tell the truth
As best I knew it. With hindsight one looks
And finds some facts were wrong, some right by flukes,
But it’s the model overall that matters,
Conception, synthesis, while our rebukes
Leveled against the past, the future scatters,
Even if, for the present, our rebuking flatters.
“I sought the truth, and sought the truth with honor,
Though from my native home I was an exile;
Of talents that God gave me I was donor
To my chosen profession—if the while
I wrote in what was called ‘a lucid style,’
It came from stating my obscurities
Within the open light, not using wile
To cover that I was perplexed, and he’s
Someone I owe a great debt to—Thucydides.”
He pointed to the man with whom he had
Priorly been conversing; for within
The realm of souls, we lose the false façade
The trappings that we wore, the clothes, the skin,
And are all naked, save the blots of sin
That we’ve acquired in our earthly life,
With marks of goodness such as we may win
In loving one another, husband, wife,
Friend, parent, child, and stranger, in good times or strife.
I asked him to excuse me; that I must
Continue on my way—he gave me thanks
For visiting with him, though to be just
I was the benefitter. Then the ranks
Of those whose scholarship so well outflanks
That of a poet, I humbly departed,
Reminding myself that money in banks
Is worth less than good scholarship. I started
Along my path again, refreshed, renewed, lighthearted.
A man of erudition such as him
Need not be such that seems to condescend,
And he, of scholars, is my paradigm;
Without a need to falsify, pretend.
His presence made me feel at ease,a friend,
And I determined, if I had a choice,
I’d rather, if a soul can so intend,
Take kinship there with him; but my small voice
Casts no determinations, save in God rejoice.