Dagger in hand

A man of prodigious fortune, coming to add his opinion to some light discussion that was going on casually at his table, began precisely thus: "It can only be a liar or an ignoramus who will say otherwise than," and so on. Pursue that philosophical point, dagger in hand.

--Michel de Montaigne, Of the art of discussion.



Stab back: cmnewman99-at-yahoo.com


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Wednesday, October 02, 2002
 
Thanks for the links, Meryl. Meryl keeps citing "Battle of Nevermore" as having Tolkien references. I had never picked up on them myself, but by Luthien the fair, she's right.

The pain of war cannot exceed the woe of aftermath
The drums will shake the castle wall
The Ringwraiths ride in black, ride on
Oh, sing as you raise your bow/Ride on
Shoot straighter than before
No comfort has the fire at night that lights the face so cold
Dance in the dark of night, sing 'till the mornin' light
The magic runes are writ in gold to bring the balance back
Bring it back

To me, the obvious Tolkien song was always "Ramble On":

Mine's a tale that can't be told, my freedom I hold dear
How years ago in days of old when magic filled the air
'twas in the darkest depths of Morder, mm-I met a girl so fair
but Gollum and the evil one crept up and slipped away with her
her, her, yeah, yeah, and ain't nothin' I can do, no

Lyrics courtesy of "Accurate Led Zeppelin Lyrics". And if they live up to their billing, the battle is of "Evermore", not "Nevermore." (They misspelled Mordor, but then they're not claiming to be 100% Tolkien accurate, now are they? Actually, to give them their due we should really say that Plant mispronounced it, and they just transcribed him 100% accurately. Of course, having seen the movie, I now know that we were all mispronouncing it all these years. At least, I never used to trill my r's...)

Meryl's comment about "Stairway" made me think of a potential problem for a logic 101 exam.
There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold. Bilbo, on the other hand, assures us that all that is gold does not glitter. Assume both are correct, and draw a Venn diagram combining their respective statements.

Such a problem, of course, could only be written by one of those profs who is trying to be hip but whose hipometer is about 30 years out of date.


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