I learned a new word today: periplum! From wikipedia:
Periplum is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) as having come from the poetry of Ezra Pound, specifically in The Pisan Cantos, Cantos LXXIV to LXXXIV of a larger work known collectively as The Cantos.
A periplum is a map or drawing that that shows how land looks from a point at sea. That is to say that a cartographer often draws maps from a bird-eye view and not from the perspective as the land would actually appear from the crow’s nest or deck of a ship. Therefore a periplum would, theoretically, be drawn as if the cartographer were out to sea so that sailors could know which land or port they were approaching.
Pound uses the periplum as a figure to describe the form of the Cantos: not history from a historian’s or philosopher’s elevated point of view, but rather from the poet’s point of view where the poet is a voyager navigating history personally.
As appears in the Pisan Cantos,
Periplum, not as land looks on a map
But as sea bord seen by men sailing.
(E. Pound Cantos LII-LXXI lix. 83)
There’s no reason for such a concept to be sea-locked. A peripatetic lifestyle can crave a periplum perspective as profoundly. Maybe Google Periplum for every point on earth.
In other at-sea perspective news, Julian Sanchez provides a nice account of how hypothetical sea-and-land look to the man ‘steading:
Rachel: do the libertarian wonks supporting seasteading intend to continue their wonkery once they move to the sea colony? or would they have to like, build stuff for the first few years?
Julian: Build stuff? Don’t be silly. The Market will provide
Rachel: So the equilibrium is a place populated partly by libertarian escapists, and partly by non-libertarian teachers and nurses and radio dispatchers who work there because none of the escapists could do those jobs (or in sufficient quantities to meet demand)?
Julian: Who said anything about teachers and nurses? The Market will do it.
Julian: In a pure libertopia, the Market will be so efficient as to dispense with the need for human intermediaries, like a Lovecraftian Elder God who casts aside the husk of an avatar to bestow the touch of madness with its own deathless tentacles.Rachel: Sweet. I’m moving.
Rachel: Ready the dinghy.Julian: Also, I’m having T-shirts with the slogan “ready the dinghy” made up.
There’s more. But your job is to use ‘periplum’ in a sentence. It can be a Robert Ludlum-style made-up title for a novel about a libertarian seasteading scheme undermined in sinister fashion, for sure. P-based alliteration, obviously a temptation.
{ 21 comments }
bad Jim 04.22.09 at 8:32 am
I have stolen
the periplum
that was in
the dinghy
from which
you were probably
surveying
the market
I’m not sorry
that the advantage
is mine
and not yours.
Dan O'Huiginn 04.22.09 at 8:50 am
Presumably, Pound’s periplum is just him screwing around with the Latin/Greek periplus.
belle le triste 04.22.09 at 9:20 am
shorter the cantos: i have read everything everyone else ever wrote, cheerfully carelessly, and here are my findings in no obvious order WITH USURA
John Holbo 04.22.09 at 9:23 am
Bad Jim, that’s awesome.
David Moles 04.22.09 at 10:39 am
We have Google Periplum: it’s called Street View.
John Holbo 04.22.09 at 11:14 am
Yeah, but it’s not called ‘Periplum’, Dave. Lemme explain it to you:
Street View, not as city looks on a map
But as streetside seen by men driving.
Now is that great poetry? I submit that it clearly is not.
John Holbo 04.22.09 at 11:15 am
But point taken.
JoB 04.22.09 at 11:15 am
bad Jim just put the plum in periplum!
Henri Vieuxtemps 04.22.09 at 12:23 pm
Patri Friedman: if they’ll interfere with a new city in the ocean, then no place is safe
What’s wrong with good ol’ catacombs?
Salient 04.22.09 at 12:51 pm
i have read everything everyone else ever wrote, cheerfully carelessly,
Among aspirations, few find better.
ajay 04.22.09 at 12:57 pm
Also, Google Earth’s 3D mapping function, which allows you to zoom through the landscape, thus giving you an idea of how it would look,
not as mountains look on a map,
but as terrain seen by men with awesome jet packs.
novakant 04.22.09 at 1:28 pm
“You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”
Righteous Bubba 04.22.09 at 1:52 pm
It’s tough when drinking cups of rum
To utilize a periplum.
Arrr.
Jed Harris 04.22.09 at 4:48 pm
Our most famous periplum (as ironic commentary) with bonus discussion.
John H 04.22.09 at 5:37 pm
Ezra Pound
Ran aground
But Yeats sailed to Byzantium
By consulting Ezra’s periplum
Righteous Bubba 04.22.09 at 5:51 pm
Periplummery:
Naval-gazing flummery.
roac 04.22.09 at 8:36 pm
A long time ago I read the journals of all three of Cook’s expeditions, as magnificently edited by the great New Zealand historian J.C. Beaglehole. The main business of the trip, for the sailors, was surveying and charting the new-to-Europeans territories visited — an intensely painstaking and laborious process. Most if not all of the charts reproduced included in the margins one or more watercolor sketches showing what the coast looked like from the sea. If there was a technical term for these sketches I’ve forgotten it — but it certainly wasn’t “periplum.”
John Holbo 04.23.09 at 3:20 am
Hey roac, I remember reading excerpts from Beaglehole while reading some anthro debates about Captain Cook.
‘Beaglehole’ is such a name, balancing right on that razor’s edge between intrepidity and absurdity, between the wide world of adventure and drawing room comedy of manners, between the seven seas and sheer silliness.
Ah, to be a person on whose tomb it could be written: ‘Beaglehole’ would have been a perfect name for him.
Zamfir 04.23.09 at 9:31 am
Google books has a first edition of Cooks travel journal, but I can’t find maps in it. It does have a picture of naked ladies, and according to google, that page is the most popular one.
schauspiele 04.24.09 at 1:04 am
This Is Just To Say
that bad Jim’s poem is, indeed, awesome.
Salient 04.25.09 at 8:01 pm
Thirteen Ways of Looking At a Periplum:
I
Among the throng of twelve hundred and five
The only fixed point in the blur
Was the compass of her periplum.
II
I invited your discernment,
Like the atlas of New Hampshire
In which we found three periplums.
III
A periplum is smoldering in the ash.
Their torches have scorched on to other subjects.
IV
The sky and the sea
Are one.
The sky and the sea and the periplum
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of conjecture
Or the beauty of affirmation,
The draft-sketch of the periplum
Or the seashore.
VI
Rogue waves beset the randan
With heaves of force.
The momentum of our oars
Slowed to an ellipse.
His steady gaze upon the periplum
Wove into this rough pattern
A pitch of inner calm.
VII
O sailor of Phoenicia,
Why have you obstructed foreign oars
In the currents about you?
Did you not see in your periplums
The velocity of seven dancing eddies?
VIII
I know sloping forests
and majestic, towering cliff lines;
But I know, too,
That a periplum is involved
In what I know.
IX
A surface with no body,
This fleshes out the edge
Of one of many shorelines.
X
To the sight of newfound Continent
Encoded into periplum,
Even the sage geometers
Would give a moment’s pause.
XI
He rode to the land of turtles
On a lapping dog.
Dreaming, a portent woke him:
Had he mistook
A mocking-bird of home
For the “wren” perched on the periplum?
XII
Her eyes are closed.
The periplum must be folded.
XIII
It was autumn all summer.
It was storming
And it was going to storm.
The periplum was posted at the dock.
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