Introduction 

Of These Dawnings: The Augur Of Ailments

In the course of Mankind’s history few have there been those occasions where he didn’t come across a plight, a blight, or an infernal mental disease.

Afflicted was he as he cultivated for himself A PIllar Of Man, it was clear from then on that those most vengeful compartments of Nature would be in that Threat To Man second only to Man himself; and in that he need only war with his body and his mind, for his body would be turned against him; but only in Spartan fashion would Man get back up again and declare in his fight to live unhindered, wherein no longer would be estranged himself from his own body in an intercorporeal fight to the death.

The Black Death

So, why do we experience Ailments..? That we proffer to those midges of cells our bodies, and that they proffer us nothing in return, except for misery; and then was made clever a need, a necessity, that Man in his revolving thoughts presenting himself as Dermatus to Xerxes, and in that discussion he pretends to be an inferior; but the reality is rather different, in that he speaks of another that grants him strength. So, too, when man is in his sickbed, does he remember who he is, that those burdens of The Common Man, who sworn to his regular duties does not stop quite so to pause and think, and reflect upon his own Whirlwind. It tries Man; in that he tests himself; wither does the man of war who goes forth hindered by biological supposition, but far greater is that willfulness of the mind, that forces him to charge forth of his own accord. And take into account, for instance a woman after labour, who is weakened by that joy in giving new life, but certainly her body has less to see, and so it feels crippled with a fear that it laments: of disease, of vigour, of pain, of torment, of patience. Ever so it the body tested, and so as mother must see to child no matter the ailment, and in that trickery of her mind purports that clever need, so too does a man for his nation or family, that an afflicted body works nonetheless, by the Will of the Mind doth compels the Body, and so the Body obeys.

Even, then, in those extraordinary circumstances, where one’s back is against the wall, and hardly an inch is there to yield, and the body seems all but lost and death imminent, does the mind shine ever so brightly, as in those extraordinary circumstances, taking this for instance, where a man such as Caesar has suffered so, those quibbles of the mind, which profane endeavours, and yet would go on to conquer of behalf of Rome most of Europe. Cue the play Oedipus Rex¹, where Sophocles describes that plague² of Thebes, and yet arose from the ashes again in the realness of Athens³ did the Greeks not relent and rise once more.⁴ 

It may also be noted with the advance of the medical sciences the reliance of such a high degree to pharmaceutical drugs where hitherto one would bolster their immune system and grit by allowing the body to rid it by natural means. Thus far has developed a quietly festering nigh-dystopian dependance on inorganic medicines and mannerisms which certainly,, though never openly admitted, merely serve to boost the profits of those companies which would dare hide from the masses the herbal and biological wisdom of their ancestors; thusly, we are now on track to attain the reversehood in Man’s plight and flight towards his-ever stewardess, Nature; who is ever the wiser a nurturing mother and prudent friend, though she be a cruel mistress; from here will develop once again though in a differing manner to times past a closeness with the corporeal though cautious and elderly fascination with the ethereal; but it remains ghostly, as the vices take form and force for a while Man to forget himself, and so portends an illness; Man herefrom learns of his manners and seeks to replicate them, and in the Cycles Of The Ages; from there will develop a bold innocence, like that of a hawk onto his prey. Certainly, will Man look to himself for advice, for now two ages are the same, though the means change, the manners and so makings must not relent.

The Augur comes; Man finds within himself the Past, Future and Present, as in the manner of Scrooge⁵  wherefore he discovers for himself the light of wonder that exists within himself and time; there laying a wisdom he thought not there before, that history is a grand teacher; indeed, the most grand of all, Man is as a sickened man, plying with himself, there a swirl of aphorisms dances before him like primeval firelight, and though he ponders for himself as the Man he is, he looks in wonder as the beast he is, that incandescent flurry granting him warmth and despair alike; he sees in their likeness fury as his God and acuity as his Devil.

Conclusion

And then it was, emboldened with the fury of a God, terrifying as a dracul, quiet as mice and sombre as Death; yet he stood still, and foresaw his life and his demise; to his right stood Spartan and stoutly, unwithering, indeed, he becomes to wither, and yet remains unwrenched, unrooted, that Stellar Man; to his left stood a decrepit,unmasked, dithering husk, phantasms afoot with scythes over his shoulder; truly an afterliven creature, juxtaposed by the Shining Star.

And so it was….. Stellar, nay, sombre!

 Footnotes

1. Sophocles . Storr F, translator. Oedipus the king. London: William Heinemann Ltd; 1912.

2. Thucydides . Crawley R, translator. The History of the Peloponnesian war. Ware Hertfordshire (UK): Wordsworth Editions Ltd; 1997.

3. Wilson  GN. Disease. In: Group TF, editor. Encyclopedia of ancient Greece. New York, USA; 2006. p. 233.

4. Hornblower, Simon (2011). The Greek World: 479–323 BC (4 ed.). Abingdon: Routledge

5. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens