Cutty Sark: The Long Legacy of a Short Chemise

What do Ichabod Crane, one of the most famous ships to sail the seas, and a famous brand of Scotch whiskey all have in common? The short answer is . . . something short. To be less obscure: they all owe their existence to the Scots poet, Robert Burns – and a scantily clad witch whom he immortalized figures heavily in the mix.

Tam O’Shanter, one of the more lengthy poems of Burns’ (perhaps best known as the author of Auld Lang Syne), relates the experience (based on local folk legend) of the eponymous subject, a good-natured if somewhat derelict Scottish chap who, lingering overlate one night at a public house in the town of Ayr, must ride alone, in the midst of a brewing storm (literal and figurative), to his home and shrewish wife which await him in the countryside. Passing an abandoned church, he notices a light and a noisy din emanating from the midst of the ruins and creeps up close to investigate. There he sees a bevy of witches, warlocks, and other grotesque creatures dancing in a frolic, while the Devil himself plays the bagpipes.

One witch in particular catches Tam’s notice: a comely young, dark-haired damsel who is dancing provocatively, thinly clad in nothing but an undersized nightshirt. The sight causes the still-inebriated Tam to lose his wits, and he, forgetting both fear and discretion, cries aloud “Weel done, Cutty-sark!,” which roughly translates as “Way to go, you in the too-short night gown!” (Cutty, in the Scots dialect, means short, and sark denotes a shirt, or, in this case, a chemise or nightshirt commonly worn as an undergarment.)

Immediately, the lights are extinguished, and Tam, instantly aware of his folly, flees in terror, with the whole host of demonic spirits flying through the air in hot pursuit, right on his horse’s heels. Knowing, as all folks somehow do in such tales, that evil spirits cannot cross a stream of running water, Tam rides as hard as he can for the stone bridge that arches over the nearby River Doon. Just as he achieves the crest of the bridge, Nannie Dee (the pretty witch’s actual name, as we know from other sources) reaches out and grabs hold of the mare’s tale, yanking all the hairs out by the roots as Tam and Meg (the mare’s name) make good their escape.

Burns’ poem was first published in 1791, and achieved almost instantaneous renown throughout the English-speaking world. Readers of early American author Washington Irving will undoubtedly recognize immediate parallels with The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820), with hints, perhaps, of Rip Van Winkle (1819). (The experiences of Tam O’Shanter certainly align with those of Ichabod Crane, the protagonist of the former tale, though in character he more resembles the hen-pecked, tavern-frequenting namesake of the latter story.)

In 1869, a ship that was destined to be the crowning achievement of the clipper era was launched from her birthplace, the yards at River Leven, in Dumbarton, Scotland. Her owner, London shipping magnate John (“Jock”) Willis, christened her Cutty Sark, probably in evocation of the supernatural speed of Tam O'Shanter’s paranormal pursuer. (And it was a connection not without precedent: the ship widely regarded as the first true clipper was the American-built Sea Witch, launched in 1846.) Cutty Sark’s hull was of a hybrid design: iron ribs within clad with traditional wooden planking without. Her figurehead was a masterfully carved image of Nannie Dee, painted ghostly white and clutching a horse's tail in her outstretched left hand.

At first it might have seemed that Cutty Sark’s diabolical associations, rather than bestowing any advantage, had instead called down a curse. A series of setbacks, disappointing performances, and even tragedies marred her early years. (On one ill-fated voyage her distraught captain committed suicide by throwing himself overboard.) Built with the tea run from China to London in mind, she served in that capacity for only a few brief years. With the opening of the Suez Canal, steamers had captured most of the tea trade by the late 1870s, and the clippers were forced to range for other less glamorous cargo. After several years hauling whatever freight she could command – coal, jute, timber, sugar, castor oil – and more bad luck – she limped into New York Harbor in the spring of 1882 in sorry shape and with a half-starved crew, thanks to the the neglect and incompetence of her then-captain – Cutty Sark was refitted in 1885 for the Australian wool trade.

Her new captain, Richard Woodget, proved an expert master, and together over the next decade they forged a legendary reputation that glimmers yet, like a sterling capstone on the glorious age of sail. The Australian wool runs proved every bit as competitive as the China tea trade had been, and Cutty Sark demonstrated at last that she could consistently outrun her old rival, Thermopylae, or any other vessel afloat – including even the new-fangled steamers if the winds were in her favor.

Sold to a Portugese shipping firm in 1895, Cutty Sark operated as a merchant vessel well into the 20th century, and after that as a training vessel by another English owner. By the 1950s, her unique prestige as the sole survivor of the clipper era led to the establishment of the Cutty Sark Preservation Society, which undertook a thorough restoration of the famed ship. Put on permanent display in Greenwich, she resides there to this day, despite extensive rebuilding following a devastating fire in 2007.

Thanks to the popular brand of Scotch whiskey introduced in 1923, Cutty Sark is a name known the world over, though the vast majority of its imbibers no doubt have little notion either of the term’s meaning or its origins. But for those in the know, it would certainly be fitting to lift a glass of Cutty Sark on New Year’s Eve, while singing Auld Lang Syne, in honor of the poetic ties that unite all of these themes together.

Flying Cloud: Around the Horn in Under 90 Days

On this date 169 years ago (August 31, 1851) the clipper ship Flying Cloud, on her maiden voyage, sailed into San Francisco’s Golden Gate and docked, having completed the 15,000 mile passage from New York via Cape Horn in the record-breaking sailing time of 89 days and 21 hours. At various points of the voyage, she logged speeds in excess of 18 knots (almost 21 mph), and covered as many as 374 nautical miles in one 24 hour period. While these rates of speed seem ponderously slow by modern standards, the fact that anywhere from 150 to 200 days was considered typical for the same passage just a few years earlier helps to lend appreciation for the sensation that a passage in less than 90 days caused at the time.

The clipper ships were the result of innovative construction on the part of several forward-thinking ship builders in the 1840s, who applied the sleek-hulled designs of smaller vessels to large ocean-going ships intended for around-the-world voyages. While unquestionably built for speed, more conservative seamen of the day doubted whether the clippers, with their knife-edged prows and slender proportions, could handle without foundering the rough seas and 50 foot swells that a Cape Horn passage could throw at a ship, but these fears were soon put to rest. And speed definitely meant irresistibly big profits for the owners: rapid deliverability of goods, especially tea from China during the 1850s – 1870s, realized huge profits for these ships which sometimes paid for their cost of construction many times over in a single voyage. Even after the advent of ocean-going steam ships by mid-century, it was decades before they could consitently outmatch the clippers (and their wind-driven successors, the steel-hulled windjammers) in speed, range, and reliability.

After selling his cargo of butter and cheese in San Francisco and scraping together a new crew (most of the original crew had immediately abandoned upon docking for the California gold fields), Captain Josiah Creesy weighed anchor and set off on another race across the Pacific for China and a load of tea to be delivered back in New York following a return passage around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope. Throughout this and subsequent celebrated voyages (including one three years later in which the Flying Cloud bested its own time for the New York to San Francisco passage by four hours, setting a new record for an exclusively sail driven vessel that stood for 135 years) the ship was expertly guided by her navigator, who was none other than Mrs. Eleanor Creesy, wife of the captain! A Massachussetts native, she had studied the arts of navigation since childhood, with the intention of one day marrying a sea captain and accompanying him around the world, just as she was now doing. Up to date on all of the latest navigational aids and techniques of her day, she was one of the first to make extensive use of Matthew Fontaine Maury’s detailed charts of global wind patterns and oceanic currents, which had been laboriously compiled by the latter, whose own career at sea in the US Navy had been cut short by an injury which landed him a desk job – along with access to what he came to realize was a treasure-trove of information contained in ships’ logs stretching back decades, lying mouldering in the Navy’s archives and begging to be compiled and published.

Longfellow’s poem The Building of the Ship was inspired by watching the Flying Cloud take shape and then being launched from Boston’s shipyards.

Build me straight, O worthy Master! 
Stanch and strong, a goodly vessel, 
That shall laugh at all disaster, 
And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!
. . . And see! she stirs! 
She starts, — she moves, — she seems to feel 
The thrill of life along her keel, 
And, spurning with her foot the ground, 
With one exulting, joyous bound, 
She leaps into the ocean's arms!

Good Night, And Joy Be With You All!

“The Parting Glass” was probably the most well-known farewell song among English-speaking peoples until Scottish poet Robert Burns penned the New Year’s Eve staple “Auld Lang Syne” in the late 18th century. A year or two ago, the former song was featured in a noteworthy commercial promoting a brand of Irish whiskey, which you might have caught sight of.

Of all the money e’er I had,
I spent it in good company.
And all the harm I’ve ever done,
Alas! It was to none but me.
And all I’ve done for want of wit
To mem’ry now I can’t recall.
So fill to me the parting glass:
Good night, and joy be with you all!

Oh, all the comrades e’er I had,
They’re sorry for my going away,
And all the sweethearts e’er I had,
They’d wish me one more day to stay.
But since it falls unto my lot
That I should rise and you should not,
I gently rise and softly call:
Good night, and joy be with you all!

If I had money enough to spend
And leisure time to sit awhile
There is a fair maid in this town
That sorely has my heart beguiled.
Her rosy cheeks and ruby lips,
I own she has my heart in thrall.
Then fill to me the parting glass:
Good night, and joy be with you all!


The tune associated with “The Parting Glass” is actually a variation on another old Celtic melody most commonly associated with the Irish lyrics “The Star of the County Down.” (For one fine version, check out this online video, beginning at about the 3:00 mark.) But the same tune has also been set to many other texts, including the hymn “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say.” The melody (appearing in both variations mentioned above) is used as a recurring motif in a recording that has really captured my fancy during the last couple of years: Perceval: La quête du Graal (The Quest for the Grail), Vol. 1, by the early music troupe La Nef. The album recounts, in French, the legend of the Arthurian knight Sir Perceval. (Although for other Tolkien fans out there, certain portions might just as easily be imagined as coming straight from the House of Elrond, telling the exploits of Beren and Luthien, or some other tale of Middle Earth.) Here is one extended excerpt, the latter half of which is exceptionally beautiful.

And so, on this New Year’s Eve, Anno Domini MMXIV, as we bid farewell to the year behind and anticipate the year ahead: Good night, and God be with you all!

Lugete, O Veneres . . . Catullus Postcard No. 2

On a day already populated by so many “Venuses and Cupids”, it seems fitting to unveil this self-promotional postcard design, the second of a series of such inspired by the work of the classical Latin poet Catullus. (More background on both the project and on Catullus can be found here.)

This poem is a classic example of melodrama, though without any real hint of sarcasm: Catullus manages to convey genuine sympathy for the loss of the sparrow and the distress that it causes for his lady love, while at the same time, the reader can detect at least a faint curl of the lip and a wink of the eye that would seem to say: “Oh come on, already! Seriously?!”

For those familiar with the Scottish poet Robert Burns, Catullus has frequently been compared with him. The works of both, though nearly two millennia apart, display a correspondingly gentle (though playful) sensitivity, combined with a devotion to the quaint colloquialisms of everyday speech and conversation that the average person in their respective cultures could readily identify with. (This poem, by Burns, serves as a fine parallel example.)

Below is the full text of Catullus’ poem in Latin, followed by an English rendering in the style of Robert Burns by G. S. Davies, taken from A First Book of Latin Poetry (which is a really delightful volume, if you can manage to get your hands on a used copy).

Lugete, O Veneres Cupidinesque,

Et quantum est hominum venustiorum:

Passer mortuus est meae puellae,

Passer, deliciae meae puellae,

Quem plus illa oculis suis amabat.

Nam mellitus erat suamque norat

Ipsam tam bene quam puella matrem,

Nec sese a gremio illius movebat,

Sed circumsiliens modo huc modo illuc

Ad solam dominam usque pipiabat.

Qui nunc it per iter tenebricosum

Illuc, unde negant redire quemquam.

At vobis male sit, male tenebrae

Orci, quae omnia bella devoratis:

Tam bellum mihi passerem abstulistis

O factum male! O miselle passer!

Tua nunc opera meae puellae

Flendo turgiduli rubent ocelli.

Weep, weep, ye Loves and Cupids all,
And ilka Man o’decent feelin’:
My lassie’s lost her wee, wee bird,
And that’s a loss, ye’ll ken, past healin’.

The lassie lo’ed him like her een:
The darling wee thing lo’ed the ither,
And knew and nestled in her breast,
As ony bairnie to her mither.

Her bosom was his dear, dear haunt—
So dear, he cared na lang to leave it;
He’d nae but gang his ain sma’ jaunt,
And flutter piping back bereavit.

The wee thing’s gane the shadowy road
That’s never travelled back ony:
Out on ye, Shades! ye’re greedy aye
To grab at aught that’s brave and bonny.

Puir, foolish, fondling, bonnie bird,
Ye little ken what wark ye’re leavin’:
Ye’ve gar’d my lassie’s een grown red,
Those bonnie een grow red wi’ grievin’.

The Lark Ascending

Ninety years ago today saw the premiere of this stunningly beautiful work for orchestra and solo violin by perhaps the twentieth century’s greatest composer. Ralph Vaughan Williams was inspired to compose The Lark Ascending by George Meredith's 122-line poem of the same title. Vaughan Williams first wrote the piece for violin and piano in 1914, but work on the second and more familiar orchestral version was interrupted by World War I. In fact, in a somewhat humorous episode, the composer was actually arrested on suspicion of espionage after he had been seen jotting down what someone took to be a secret code (actually musical notations for the work here considered) while observing a large troop embarkation across the English Channel at the war’s outbreak. (My own artistic endeavors have caused similar run-ins with the authorities on at least one occasion, so I can relate, though that's another story for another time.)

The dream-like beauty of the music really speaks for itself, and its accessibility makes it one of the most popular pieces of classical music around (especially in England, not surprisingly). For my part, I’m intrigued by the way it somewhat paradoxically evokes both Olde England and (by prominent use of the pentatonic scale) the Orient.

A God and Yet a Man

A god and yet a man?
   A maid and yet a mother?
Wit wonders what wit can
   Conceive this or the other.

A god and can he die?
   A dead man, can he live?
What wit can well reply?
   What reason reason give?

God, truth itself, doth teach it.
   Man’s wit sinks too far under
By reason’s power to reach it.
   Believe and leave to wonder.

—Anonymous Fifteenth Century Verse

Rhyme of November Stars

The noiseless marching of the stars
Sweeps above me all night long;
Up the skies, over the skies
Passes the uncounted throng,
Without haste, without rest,
From the east to the west:
Vega, Deneb, white Altair
Shine like crystals in the air,
and the lonely Fomalhaut
In the dark south, paces low.
Now the timid Pleiades
Leave the shelter of the trees,
While toward the north, mounting high,
Gold Capella, like a queen,
Watches over her demesne
Stretching toward the kingly one,
Dusky, dark Aldebaran.
Betelgeuse and Rigel burn
In their wide wheel, slow to turn,
And in the sharp November frost
Bright Sirius, with his blue light
Completes the loveliness of night.

—Sara Teasdale

Catullus Postcard No. 1

As promised in my earlier, more detailed post, here is an online view of the final postcard art.

Vivamus, mea Lesbia . . .

So, I’ve had this idea for a while now to do a series of pieces (partly for my own pleasure and partly to use for self-promotional purposes) inspired by the poetry of Catullus (ca. 84-54 B.C.). His lyrical verses explore a number of very interesting themes and subjects and provide a rich source of inspiration for visual interpretation. It being summer—and an uncommonly hot one at that—what could be more fitting than to turn to one of the most famous of his mildly erotic love poems to get things kicked off? With that in mind, I chose Number Five in his catalog of over one hundred surviving poems (Number Seven is also closely related). A variety of potential approaches came to mind for the piece—abstract or semi-abstract, typographically driven, a photographically-based design, etc.—but for this one I chose to stick with a more-or-less straightforward illustration executed in pen, watercolor and colored pencil, leaving some of those other angles for possible exploration in future installments of the series. The above detail from the pencil sketch serves as a bit of a teaser; I’ll post an image of the final in a few days, after the lucky few have had a chance to get their hard copy (in the form of a 5"x7" postcard) in the mail.

Just a little background: Most of what we know about Gaius Valerius Catullus comes directly from his poetry, which descends to us from antiquity by the thinnest of threads: a single manuscript of his surviving verses came to light in his hometown of Verona sometime during the 14th century. Other biographical details have been filled in by scholars with help from references and circumstantial evidence gleaned form other sources. He was a provincial, though well-off, small-town boy from northern Italy, his family’s villa being situated in the village of Sirmio (near Verona), on a lovely peninsula at the southern end of the stunningly beautiful Lake Garda. His father was apparently a friend of Julius Caesar. Sometime during young adulthood he moved to Rome where he became completely entranced by (and intimately involved with) a highly sophisticated, married woman whom most scholars identify as one Clodia Metelli, to whom he gave the pseudonym “Lesbia” in his poems.

That much suffices as a background for the poem under consideration here, so with that we shall leave Catullus there in the arms of his Lesbia until the next installment bids us follow his course further. The original Latin text below is followed by my own translation, which is fairly literal while preserving the 11 syllables per line of the original hendecasyllabic meter.

Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus,

Rumoresque senum severiorum

Omnes unius aestimemus assis!

Soles occidere et redire possunt:

Nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux,

Nox est perpetua una dormienda.

Da mi basia mille, deinde centum,

Dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,

Deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum.

Dein, cum milia multa fecerimus,

Conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus,

Aut ne quis malus invidere possit,

Cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.

Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love,
And all the rumors of those stodgy old men
Let us reckon as but a mere penny’s worth.
Suns may well set only to rise once again,
But for us, when our brief light is extinguished,
There is but one eternal night to be slept.
Give me a thousand kisses; then a hundred.
Then another thousand; and a hundred more.
Again, a thousand, and again, a hundred.
Then, when we have tallied many a thousand,
We’ll throw the abacus into confusion,
Lest some envious evil eye should jinx us,
If the profuse number of kisses be known.
 

Bright Star, Redux

Upon further reflection, I have come to realize that my initial reaction was rather off the mark and that I’m now going to have to eat some of my earlier words regarding this film. Not that I’m now going to praise it as one of the greatest films ever made, but it does have a certain charm which really grew on me in the days following my initial viewing, and which was further reaffirmed upon a second. I think this is one of those movies that has to be evaluated on its own terms, something I failed to consider in my first review, forgetting that not every film aspires to the same level—or even the same kind—of greatness.

To reiterate some of the picture’s more obvious strengths: exquisite cinematography, delightful costumes, and several first-rate performances. (Paul Schneider is particularly effective and fun to watch as Keats’ friend and patron, Charles Armitage Brown.) My first time around, I thought the score was decent but too sparse; now I realize that this was an exercise in studied and wise restraint, one which increases the potency of the scenes where the music does make an appearance. (Bonus points too for the unique a cappella arrangement of the Mozart wind serenade, which is featured prominently. Come to think of it, that may have been the subliminal trigger that caused me to make the Amadeus comparison in the first place.)

Certain almost incidental elements, such as the interactions between Fanny and her siblings, are likewise subtly endearing. It’s also striking and refreshing, especially given the Romantic context in which the film is set, to be so boldly confronted by the presentation of two lovers who, though stirred by the most intense passions and forces of attraction, nevertheless resolve to act honorably (in sharp contrast to Brown’s character, it should be noted), remembering that their actions will have consequences far beyond the present moment. (HT to Jeffrey Overstreet for this observation, and to Joe Thacker,for pointing me there.)

And lastly, I was very much remiss in failing to mention the absolutely fabulous and right-on-the-money quotation about the nature of poetry, given by Ben Whishaw in his role as Keats.

A poem needs understanding through the senses. The point of diving in a lake is not immediately to swim to the shore; it’s to be in the lake, to luxuriate in the sensation of water. You do not work the lake out. It is an experience beyond thought. Poetry soothes and emboldens the soul to accept mystery.

So my reconsidered take on this film is to approach it much on these terms. This is not a fast food flick; it’s a leisurely four course meal kind of movie. Watch it being prepared for a somewhat slower-than-normal pace, and without expecting any huge surprises—no innovative plot twists, or grandiose commentaries on the human condition. This is not one of those films which, as Keats also says of certain men at one point in the dialogue, aim to "make you start without making you feel". Be prepared, rather, to luxuriate in the sensation which each progressive scene conjures up, and I think you will find the experience a most enjoyable one.

Bright Star

Though definitely worth watching, this biographical sketch of the great Romantic poet John Keats’ final years proves rather disappointing overall. The film follows the relationship of Keats and his fiancé Fanny Brawne, which ends in tragic and unconsummated separation due to Keats’ poverty, failing health and untimely death from tuberculosis in Rome at the age of twenty-five. Despite some excellent casting choices, admirable performances and beautiful camera work, the overall result still somehow manages to engender a tedium which seems to overflow the otherwise reasonable limitations of the hour-and-fifty-nine-minute time-frame. Quite unlike Keats’ poetry, there is simply little here to arouse the imagination or draw the audience in so that they may themselves experience and become participants of both the elation and the pathos of the work that is set before them. For this failure, I think the screenplay itself is mostly at fault.

More specifically, I think this is a case where a too conservative approach—one that resolves, on the whole, to stick safely to the known biographical facts—ultimately fails to satisfactorily meet the demands of the chosen medium. A narrative film needs to accept and embrace the fact that it is not a documentary. By contrast, an approach which is willing to introduce some creative and well-considered, but not cheap or gimmicky, dramatical devices in order to better serve the narrative is much more successful. In addition to the other necessary qualities, this is what makes Amadeus, for instance, not a great biography (it reduces Mozart to something of a caricature and substitutes wild conjecture for historical fact), but a truly great film, while Bright Star remains simply a mediocre one. Both biopics begin with the considerable challenge of presenting an artist who was the consummate practitioner of his craft, and whose premature demise is well known and anticipated by the audience beforehand. But through creative daring, Amadeus attains the cinematic status of a Mozart, while Bright Star remains just another Salieri.

NOTE: Be sure to read my follow-up to this review here.

Cervantes and Poe

I’ve recently finished Cervantes’ Don Quixote, which I enjoyed immensely, despite its epic length. (Over one thousand pages in print; 35 discs on audio CD.) At some point in my reading/listening, I was reminded of a vague association of this work with Edgar Allan Poe’s famous poem Eldorado. An initial search through my own volumes and online hasn’t turned up anyone who has made the case for any deliberate allusion to Cervantes on Poe’s part, but I think that such a case could certainly be made. And with that said (drumroll, please), I will now venture to offer my own amateur contribution to the realm of literary criticism, based on my own notes jotted down during the course of my recent read/listen:

Exhibit A: In sunshine and in shadow,… This phrase, or at least one very like it (the original was written in Spanish, after all), appears in PtI, BkIII, Cap1, where Don Quixote says “…and this is so true as that there hath been a knight that hath dwelt on a rock, exposed to the sun and the shadow, and other annoyances of heaven, for the space of two years, without his lady’s knowledge.”

Exhibit B: The name Eldorado refers of course to the fabled city of gold for which the Spanish conquistadors searched in vain throughout the western hemisphere. (And of significant note, Poe first published his poem in 1849, the year of the famous California Gold Rush.) On several different occasions in Cervantes’ novel (twice in the chapter referenced following, in fact), Don Quixote says something similar to this: “ I would have thee know, friend Sancho, that I was born, by the disposition of Heaven, in this our age of iron, to renew in it that of gold, or the golden world.” (PtI, BkIII, Cap6)

Exhibit C: The very curious and unique phrase mountains of the moon also occurs in PtI, BkIII, Cap6: “…the dreadful noise of that water in whose search we come, which seems to throw itself headlong down from the steep mountains of the moon…”

Exhibit D: And speaking of spectral shadows: “…the knight errant without a lady is like…a shadow without a body to cast it.” (PtII, Cap32)

Exhibit E: Lastly, there is the more general appeal to the overall tenor of Poe’s poem, concerning a wearied knight who is prodded onward (by Death himself?) to ride on in the face of almost certain death, a theme which is virtually omnipresent in the account of Don Quixote, the following serving as just one example: “ Let the remembrance of Amadis live, and be imitated in everything as much as may be, by Don Quixote of the Mancha; of whom may be said what was said of the other, that though he achieved not great things, yet did he die in their pursuit.” (PtI, BkIII, Cap12)

Taken in conjunction with the above observation that Poe’s poem was published during the frenzy of 1849, this last point raises some interesting possibilities. Assuming that Poe did have the Gold Rush on his mind, what opinion is he conveying with regard to it? Was it a manly, heroic pursuit of wealth and fortune in the far West, in the face of manifold difficulties and dangers? Or was it a fool’s errand, destined to end in disillusionment, financial ruin, and even (for more than a few) death? Or was it inexorably—and Quixotically—something of both?