Not P but Moby-Dick (11)

[Mike Jing]

Thanks, Mark and Ian.


On Mon, Sep 18, 2023 at 9:08 AM Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I agree with Mark, and add that Melville's hyperbole here is ironic. That
> is: any subjective sense of 'royalty' is to be taken lightly, as 'mundane
> grandeur'.
>
> On Mon, Sep 18, 2023 at 2:57 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> First, what does "To have been Belshazzar, King of Babylon" indicate? Is
>> it
>> a wish, or something else entirely?
>>
>> Mike, I think this can be best seen as the subjunctive case as you
>> translate.....
>>
>> And, I think Yes those two lines beginning with "that man's"....are in
>> parallel....
>> Two aspects of presiding over one's own private table of invited
>> guests....
>>
>> Melville equalizing everyman vs a King........
>>
>> On Mon, Sep 18, 2023 at 3:15 AM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > The following excerpt is from Chapter 34:
>> >
>> > Wherefore this difference? A problem? Perhaps not. To have been
>> Belshazzar,
>> > King of Babylon; and to have been Belshazzar, not haughtily but
>> > courteously, therein certainly must have been some touch of mundane
>> > grandeur. But he who in the rightly regal and intelligent spirit
>> presides
>> > over his own private dinner-table of invited guests, that man’s
>> > unchallenged power and dominion of individual influence for the time;
>> that
>> > man’s royalty of state transcends Belshazzar’s, for Belshazzar was not
>> the
>> > greatest.
>> >
>> > First, what does "To have been Belshazzar, King of Babylon" indicate?
>> Is it
>> > a wish, or something else entirely?
>> >
>> > Second, in the last sentence, are "that man’s unchallenged power and
>> > dominion of individual influence for the time" and "that man’s royalty
>> of
>> > state" in parallel? Melville’s liberal use of the semicolon is confusing
>> > sometimes.
>> > --
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>> >
>> --
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>>
>