David X Novak
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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.