Lake Forest: “dry wood on the water with a sail”; contemplating a limpet; three weeks

 

I have finished rereading Camoes THE LUSIADS during much of which Vasco de Gama relates the history of Portuguese military prowess to rulers in Malindi, a port north of Mombasa in present day Kenya where his small fleet was welcomed, and in Calicut on the southwest coast of India where they ultimately fulfilled the purpose of the voyage.  In addition to describing the voyage itself, there are two other unusual episodes, one when on the return they are brought by Venus to the Isle of Love where they are entertained—to use a polite word—by beautiful nereids, and another much earlier when just as they are to depart from Lisbon an old man standing on the shore disparages the enterprise in total contrast to the heroic tenor of the rest of the poem.

I am fairly certain that I have quoted the line about ‘dry wood on the water with a sail’ before in this journal, but I find the entire tirade so ironically pleasing that I want to share it with you.

J.M.W. Turner is one of my favorite painters, but I came across a reference this morning to one of his paintings I had not seen, ‘The Exile and The Rock Limpet’.  It was described as ludicrous and it is.  Even the greatest artists make mistakes.  It is meant to depict Napoleon on a beach in St. Helena contemplating a rock limpet, presumably impressed by its ability to hang on and persevere.

That there is no such beach in St. Helena—I have been there and Turner never was; the island doesn’t have a harbor and just falls into the sea—and that Napoleon was short not tall, and kept in a large house in the hills well away from the coast to prevent any escape attempt, are perhaps irrelevant.  An artist is entitled to his vision, but Napoleon and the limpet is romantic nonsense.

Carol advised me last evening that we are leaving this place on April 26.  That is three weeks from today.  She has made reservations for that night at a nearby hotel just off the Interstate so I believe she is serious although this place is still full of stuff.  The two day drive will see me looking at Skull Creek and GANNET on Sunday, April 28.  Excellent.  I feel like a prisoner with an indeterminate sentence who has just been given a release date.