Thursday, January 1, 2009

"Melted into Air, into Thin Air"

From some random blog, I read "Caliban," which caused me to think of The Tempest. Being the reader I am, I picked up my collected works to read it again, curious to refresh my memories of Caliban. Meanwhile, I posted a youtube video which ended with this quote (roughly), "Life is a dream, and we are the imaginations of ourselves." Caliban, it turned out, was only the signpost of the eventual synchronicity that occurred, because it was Prospero who uttered that ancient wisdom, rediscovered by physicists, echoed by Shakespeare, inherent in global archetypes of symbol and myth.

Prospero: You do look, my son, in a moved sort,
As if you were dismayed: be cheerful, sir.
Our revels now are ended...These are actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air,
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind: we are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep...

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