atdtda: 31 - pg 868

[Bekah]

Page 868

.4  Alexandrian cigarettes
a Sherlock Holmes favorite -  see "The Adventure of the Golden Pince  
Nez"

.5 - 7  " 'That he should have pursued his schemes from Venice,' the  
Prince said, 'this clouded realm of pedestrian mazes and municipal  
stillness, suggests an allegiance to forces already long in motion...."

The history may only be that of  the old Austrian/French/Italian/ 
Ottoman conflicts in the area  (from the 7th century Avars).

Or the forces could be much older,  is Thiegn  is allied to evil?   
The doges of Venice were so unprincipled and devious as to be  
considered evil by some in England (with cause):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_of_Venice

and

"The best way to understand the evil of Venice is to look at the  
great poets' portrayal of the unbelievable duplicity that Venice  
represented: portrayals by Marlowe in The Jew of Malta, and by  
Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice and especially in Othello, the  
Moor of Venice. The quintessential Venetian is Iago. Yet the most  
brilliant portrait of Venetian method was done by Friedrich Schiller  
in his The Ghostseer."    http://members.tripod.com/american_almanac/ 
takeover.htm

see also:   http://members.tripod.com/american_almanac/venphau1.htm


.7 - .8    "But that is only the mask he has chosen. "
Mask that Thiegn has chosen?   To be devious?  To be aligned with the  
byzantine and convoluted schemes of Venician history?
What's underneath the mask?  Anything?


.8 - .10   "Other nations, Americans notoriously, style themselves  
"republican" and think they understand republics, but what was  
fashioned here over corroded centuries of doges' cruelty lies forever  
beyond their understanding."

The wickedness of the doges affected the "Republic" of Venice.  The  
Doges were far more evil than Americans can imagine.   They, 120 of  
them,  ruled Venice for 1000  years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Doges_of_Venice
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge%27s_Palace


.11 - .14       "Each Doge in his turn became more and more a  
sacrificial animal, his own freedoms taken, his life brought under an  
impossibly stringent code of conduct, taking comfort, while he wore  
the corno, in a resentful brutality, waiting each day for the fateful  
escort of thugs, the sealed gondola, the final bridge. "

Corno -  the little pointed hat:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 
Image:Bellini.doge.600pix.jpg

The freedom of the doges  (like leaving the palace) was quite limited  
by law coming from a growing group of "republican" elders.   The  
doges were elected but totally governed by the aristocratic noble-types.

"... final bridge..."    The Bridge of Sighs?   Stretches between  
the  http://www.uk-images.com/html/bridge_of_sighs.html
but I don't think any of the doges met their death walking across it  
- it was for ruffians.   The doges probably met their untimely deaths  
in other ways.
http://www.oldandsold.com/articles03/venice7.shtml
http://europeforvisitors.com/venice/articles/bridge_of_sighs.htm

And there are lots and lots of bridges, real and metaphorical,  in AtD.



.15  " His best hope, pathetically slender, might be for some remote  
monastery and a decline into ever-deeper penitence."
Doge of Venice - Pietro I Orseolo (976 - 978) resigned to become a  
Camaldolese hermit in Abbey of Sant Miguel de Cuxa in the Pyrenees
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Doges_of_Venice
  -   Take a look at the way some of the early doges died!


.17 "The Doges are gone, the curse remains.  Some today, often in  
positions to do great harm, will never come to understand  how  
"power" - lo stato - could have been an expression of communal will,   
invisibly exercised in the dark that surrounds each soul, in which  
penance must be a necessary term.  Unless one has performed in his  
life penance equal to what he has exacted from others, there is an  
imbalance in Nature. ' "

"lo stato"  the state

Buddhist connection:  In this passage the we might see the Buddhist  
connection in terms of balancing life penance to great harm - karma.

"I was speaking of Venetian history.  Today ... "

.26 - .29   "Today suppose there were a foreign Crown Prince, for  
example, who passionately hated Italy, who upon succession to the  
throne of his empire would, certain as the sunrise, go to war with  
Italy to take back territory he believes to be his family's..."

The Archduke Ferdinand was in line to be crowned Emperor.  He had  
plans to

Austria's Franz Joseph was crowned emperor in 1848 and took up arms  
against the rebellious Hungarians as well as the Italians (Sardinia  
because of Lombardy-Venizia) later that year.   He brought Venitia  
back into the "family" estate but wasn't so lucky with Hungary.    
Venezia was a part of Austria until 1866 when Sardinia took over.

There were so many factions in the Empire, particularly that southern  
area,  that truly,  there was no one to be trusted except those with  
a "passion"  as the Prince and Cyprian note.

Bekah



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