TL;DR
From Encyclopedia Dramatica
An abbreviation for Too Long; Didn't Read. Used when a writer didn't KISS. Most frequently associated with the Stream of Consciousness style of LiveJournal entry. Hey, the truth hurts. TL;DR in all forms is bannable on Something Awful.
For a countervailing faggot viewpoint, see TS;DR.
Contents |
Famous, read this at least, tl;dr the rest
This shit article was mentioned in a zomg real life newspaper. ED is no longer just an Internet celebrity, bring us our 72 virgins!
As a fire raging in some mountain glen after long drought--and the dense forest is in a blaze, while the wind carries great tongues of fire in every direction--even so furiously did Achilles rage, wielding his spear as though he were a god, and giving chase to those whom he would slay, till the dark earth ran with blood. Or as one who yokes broad-browed oxen that they may tread barley in a threshing-floor--and it is soon bruised small under the feet of the lowing cattle--even so did the horses of Achilles trample on the shields and bodies of the slain. The axle underneath and the railing that ran round the car were bespattered with clots of blood thrown up by the horses' hoofs, and from the tyres of the wheels; but the son of Peleus pressed on to win still further glory, and his hands were bedrabbled with gore.
BOOK XXI The fight between Achilles and the river Scamander--The gods fight among themselves--Achilles drives the Trojans within their gates.
NOW when they came to the ford of the full-flowing river Xanthus, begotten of immortal Jove, Achilles cut their forces in two: one half he chased over the plain towards the city by the same way that the Achaeans had taken when flying panic-stricken on the preceding day with Hector in full triumph; this way did they fly pell-mell, and Juno sent down a thick mist in front of them to stay them. The other half were hemmed in by the deep silver-eddying stream, and fell into it with a great uproar. The waters resounded, and the banks rang again, as they swam hither and thither with loud cries amid the whirling eddies. As locusts lying to a river before the blast of a grass fire--the flame comes on and on till at last it overtakes them and they huddle into the water--even so was the eddying stream of Xanthus filled with the uproar of men and horses, all struggling in confusion before Achilles.
Forthwith the hero left his spear upon the bank, leaning it against a tamarisk bush, and plunged into the river like a god, armed with his sword only. Fell was his purpose as he hewed the Trojans down on every side. Their dying groans rose hideous as the sword smote them, and the river ran red with blood. As when fish fly scared before a huge dolphin, and fill every nook and corner of some fair haven--for he is sure to eat all he can catch--even so did the Trojans cower under the banks of the mighty river, and when Achilles' arms grew weary with killing them, he drew twelve youths alive out of the water, to sacrifice in revenge for Patroclus son of Menoetius. He drew them out like dazed fawns, bound their hands behind them with the girdles of their own shirts, and gave them over to his men to take back to the ships. Then he sprang into the river, thirsting for still further blood.
There he found Lycaon, son of Priam seed of Dardanus, as he was escaping out of the water; he it was whom he had once taken prisoner when he was in his father's vineyard, having set upon him by night, as he was cutting young shoots from a wild fig-tree to make the wicker sides of a chariot. Achilles then caught him to his sorrow unawares, and sent him by sea to Lemnos, where the son of Jason bought him. But a guest-friend, Eetion of Imbros, freed him with a great sum, and sent him to Arisbe, whence he had escaped and returned to his father's house. He had spent eleven days happily with his friends after he had come from Lemnos, but on the twelfth heaven again delivered him into the hands of Achilles, who was to send him to the house of Hades sorely against his will. He was unarmed when Achilles caught sight of him, and had neither helmet nor shield; nor yet had he any spear, for he had thrown all his armour from him on to the bank, and was sweating with his struggles to get out of the river, so that his strength was now failing him.
Then Achilles said to himself in his surprise, "What marvel do I see here? If this man can come back alive after having been sold over into Lemnos, I shall have the Trojans also whom I have slain rising from the world below. Could not even the waters of the grey sea imprison him, as they do many another whether he will or no? This time let him taste my spear, that I may know for certain whether mother earth who can keep even a strong man down, will be able to hold him, or whether thence too he will return."
Thus did he pause and ponder. But Lycaon came up to him dazed and trying hard to embrace his knees, for he would fain live, not die. Achilles thrust at him with his spear, meaning to kill him, but Lycaon ran crouching up to him and caught his knees, whereby the spear passed over his back, and stuck in the ground, hungering though it was for blood. With one hand he caught Achilles' knees as he besought him, and with the other he clutched the spear and would not let it go. Then he said, "Achilles, have mercy upon me and spare me, for I am your suppliant. It was in your tents that I first broke bread on the day when you took me prisoner in the vineyard; after which you sold me away to Lemnos far from my father and my friends, and I brought you the price of a hundred oxen. I have paid three times as much to gain my freedom; it is but twelve days that I have come to Ilius after much suffering, and now cruel fate has again thrown me into your hands. Surely father Jove must hate me, that he has given me over to you a second time. Short of life indeed did my mother Laothoe bear me, daughter of aged Altes--of Altes who reigns over the warlike Lelegae and holds steep Pedasus on the river Satnioeis. Priam married his daughter along with many other women and two sons were born of her, both of whom you will have slain. Your spear slew noble Polydorus as he was fighting in the front ranks, and now evil will here befall me, for I fear that I shall not escape you since heaven has delivered me over to you. Furthermoar I say, and lay my saying to your heart, spare me, for I am not of the same womb as Hector who slew your brave and noble comrade."
With such words did the princely son of Priam beseech Achilles; but Achilles answered him sternly. "Idiot," said he, "talk not to me of ransom. Until Patroclus fell I preferred to give the Trojans quarter, and sold beyond the sea many of those whom I had taken alive; but now not a man shall live of those whom heaven delivers into my hands before the city of Ilius--and of all Trojans it shall fare hardest with the sons of Priam. Therefore, my friend, you too shall die. Why should you whine in this way? Patroclus fell, and he was a better man than you are. I too--see you not how I am great and goodly? I am son to a noble father, and have a goddess for my mother, but the hands of doom and death overshadow me all as surely. The day will come, either at dawn or dark, or at the noontide, when one shall take my life also in battle, either with his spear, or with an arrow sped from his bow."
Thus did he speak, and Lycaon's heart sank within him. He loosed his hold of the spear, and held out both hands before him; but Achilles drew his keen blade, and struck him by the collar-bone on his neck; he plunged his two-edged sword into him to the very hilt, whereon he lay at full length on the ground, with the dark blood welling from him till the earth was soaked. Then Achilles caught him by the foot and flung him into the river to go down stream, vaunting over him the while, and saying, "Lie there among the fishes, who will lick the blood from your wound and gloat over it; your mother shall not lay you on any bier to mourn you, but the eddies of Scamander shall bear you into the broad bosom of the sea. There shall the fishes feed on the fat of Lycaon as they dart under the dark ripple of the waters--so perish all of you till we reach the citadel of strong Ilius--you in flight, and I following after to destroy you. The river with its broad silver stream shall serve you in no stead, for all the bulls you offered him and all the horses that you flung living into his waters. None the less miserably shall you perish till there is not a man of you but has paid in full for the death of Patroclus and the havoc you wrought among the Achaeans whom you have slain while I held aloof from battle."
So spoke Achilles, but the river grew moar and moar angry, and pondered within himself how he should stay the hand of Achilles and save the Trojans from disaster. Meanwhile the son of Peleus, spear in hand, sprang upon Asteropaeus son of Pelegon to kill him. He was son to the broad river Axius and Periboea eldest daughter of Acessamenus; for the river had lain with her. Asteropaeus stood up out of the water to face him with a spear in either hand, and Xanthus filled him with courage, being angry for the death of the youths whom Achilles was slaying ruthlessly within his waters. When they were close up with one another Achilles was first to speak. "Who and whence are you," said he, "who dare to face me? Woe to the parents whose son stands up against me." And the son of Pelegon answered, "Great son of Peleus, why should you ask my lineage. I am from the fertile land of far Paeonia, captain of the Paeonians, and it is now eleven days that I am at Ilius. I am of the blood of the river Axius--of Axius that is the fairest of all rivers that run. He begot the famed warrior Pelegon, whose son men call me. Let us now fight, Achilles.
NIGGAS DON'T KNOW ABOUT MY SPARTAAAAAAA!!
Thus did he defy him, and Achilles raised his spear of Pelian ash. Asteropaeus failed with both his spears, for he could use both hands alike; with the one spear he struck Achilles' shield, but did not pierce it, for the layer of gold, gift of the god, stayed the point; with the other spear he grazed the elbow of Achilles' right arm drawing dark blood, but the spear itself went by him and fixed itself in the ground, foiled of its bloody banquet. Then Achilles, fain to kill him, hurled his spear at Asteropaeus, but failed to hit him and struck the steep bank of the river, driving the spear half its length into the earth. The son of Peleus then drew his sword and sprang furiously upon him. Asteropaeus vainly tried to draw Achilles' spear out of the bank by main force; thrice did he tug at it, trying with all his might to draw it out, and thrice he had to leave off trying; the fourth time he tried to bend and break it, but ere he could do so Achilles smote him with his sword and killed him. He struck him in the belly near the navel, so that all his bowels came gushing out on to the ground, and the darkness of death came over him as he lay gasping. Then Achilles set his foot on his chest and spoiled him of his armour, vaunting over him and saying, "Lie there--begotten of a river though you be, it is hard for you to strive with the offspring of Saturn's son. You declare yourself sprung from the blood of a broad river, but I am of the seed of mighty Jove. My father is Peleus, son of Aeacus ruler over the many Myrmidons, and Aeacus was the son of Jove. Therefore as Jove is mightier than any river that flows into the sea, so are his children stronger than those of any river whatsoever. Moarover you have a great river hard by if he can be of any use to you, but there is no fighting against Jove the son of Saturn, with whom not even King Achelous can compare, nor the mighty stream of deep-flowing Oceanus, from whom all rivers and seas with all springs and deep wells proceed; even Oceanus fears the lightnings of great Jove, and his thunder that comes crashing out of heaven."
With this he drew his bronze spear out of the bank, and now that he had killed Asteropaeus, he let him lie where he was on the sand, with the dark water flowing over him and the eels and fishes busy nibbling and gnawing the fat that was about his kidneys. Then he went in chase of the Paeonians, who were flying along the bank of the river in panic when they saw their leader slain by the hands of the son of Peleus. Therein he slew Thersilochus, Mydon, Astypylus, Mnesus, Thrasius, Oeneus, and Ophelestes, and he would have slain yet others, had not the river in anger taken human form, and spoken to him from out the deep waters saying, "Achilles, if you excel all in strength, so do you also in wickedness, for the gods are ever with you to protect you: if, then, the son of Saturn has vouchsafed it to you to destroy all the Trojans, at any rate drive them out of my stream, and do your grim work on land. My fair waters are now filled with corpses, nor can I find any channel by which I may pour myself into the sea for I am choked with dead, and yet you go on mercilessly slaying. I am in despair, therefore, O captain of your host, trouble me no further."
Achilles answered, "So be it, Scamander, Jove-descended; but I will never cease dealing out death among the Trojans, till I have pent them up in their city, and made trial of Hector face to face, that I may learn whether he is to vanquish me, or I him."
As he spoke he set upon the Trojans with a fury like that of the gods. But the river said to Apollo, "Surely, son of Jove, lord of the silver bow, you are not obeying the commands of Jove who charged you straitly that you should stand by the Trojans and defend them, till twilight fades, and darkness is over an the earth."
Meanwhile Achilles sprang from the bank into mid-stream, whereon the river raised a high wave and attacked him. He swelled his stream into a torrent, and swept away the many dead whom Achilles had slain and left within his waters. These he cast out on to the land, bellowing like a bull the while, but the living he saved alive, hiding them in his mighty eddies. The great and terrible wave gathered about Achilles, falling upon him and beating on his shield, so that he could not keep his feet; he caught hold of a great elm-tree, but it came up by the roots, and tore away the bank, damming the stream with its thick branches and bridging it all across; whereby Achilles struggled out of the stream, and fled full speed over the plain, for he was afraid.
But the mighty god ceased not in his pursuit, and sprang upon him with a dark-crested wave, to stay his hands and save the Trojans from destruction. The son of Peleus darted away a spear's throw from him; swift as the swoop of a black hunter-eagle which is the strongest and fleetest of all birds, even so did he spring forward, and the armour rang loudly about his breast. He fled on in front, but the river with a loud roar came tearing after. As one who would water his garden leads a stream from some fountain over his plants, and all his ground-spade in hand he clears away the dams to free the channels, and the little stones run rolling round and round with the water as it goes merrily down the bank faster than the man can follow--even so did the river keep catching up with Achilles albeit he was a fleet runner, for the gods are stronger than men. As often as he would strive to stand his ground, and see whether or no all the gods in heaven were in league against him, so often would the mighty wave come beating down upon his shoulders, and he would have to keep flying on and on in great dismay; for the angry flood was tiring him out as it flowed past him and ate the ground from under his feet.
Then the son of Peleus lifted up his voice to heaven saying, "Father Jove, is there none of the gods who will take pity upon me, and save me from the river? I do not care what may happen to me afterwards. I blame none of the other dwellers on Olympus so severely as I do my dear mother, who has beguiled and tricked me. She told me I was to fall under the walls of Troy by the flying arrows of Apollo; would that Hector, the best man among the Trojans, might there slay me; then should I fall a hero by the hand of a hero; whereas now it seems that I shall come to a most pitiable end, trapped in this river as though I were some swineherd's boy, who gets carried down a torrent while trying to cross it during a storm."
As soon as he had spoken thus, Neptune and Minerva came up to him in the likeness of two men, and took him by the hand to reassure him. Neptune spoke first. "Son of Peleus," said he, "be not so exceeding fearful; we are two gods, come with Jove's sanction to assist you, I, and Pallas Minerva. It is not your fate to perish in this river; he will abate presently as you will see; moarover we strongly advise you, if you will be guided by us, not to stay your hand from fighting till you have pent the Trojan host within the famed walls of Ilius--as many of them as may escape. Then kill Hector and go back to the ships, for we will vouchsafe you a triumph over him."
When they had so said they went back to the other immortals, but Achilles strove onward over the plain, encouraged by the charge the gods had laid upon him. All was now covered with the flood of waters, and much goodly armour of the youths that had been slain was rifting about, as also many corpses, but he forced his way against the stream, speeding right onwards, nor could the broad waters stay him, for Minerva had endowed him with great strength. Nevertheless Scamander did not slacken in his pursuit, but was still moar furious with the son of Peleus. He lifted his waters into a high crest and cried aloud to Simois saying, "Dear brother, let the two of us unite to save this man, or he will sack the mighty city of King Priam, and the Trojans will not hold out against him. Help me at once; fill your streams with water from their sources, rouse all your torrents to a fury; raise your wave on high, and let snags and stones come thundering down you that we may make an end of this savage creature who is now lording it as though he were a god. Nothing shall serve him longer, not strength nor comeliness, nor his fine armour, which forsooth shall soon be lying low in the deep waters covered over with mud. I will wrap him in sand, and pour tons of shingle round him, so that the Achaeans shall not know how to gather his bones for the silt in which I shall have hidden him, and when they celebrate his funeral they need build no barrow."
On this he upraised his tumultuous flood high against Achilles, seething as it was with foam and blood and the bodies of the dead. The dark waters of the river stood upright and would have overwhelmed the son of Peleus, but Juno, trembling lest Achilles should be swept away in the mighty torrent, lifted her voice on high and called out to Vulcan her son. "Crook-foot," she cried, "my child, be up and doing, for I deem it is with you that Xanthus is fain to fight; help us at once, kindle a fierce fire; I will then bring up the west and the white south wind in a mighty hurricane from the sea, that shall bear the flames against the heads and armour of the Trojans and consume them, while you go along the banks of Xanthus burning his trees and wrapping him round with fire. Let him not turn you back neither by fair words nor foul, and slacken not till I shout and tell you. Then you may stay your flames."
On this Vulcan kindled a fierce fire, which broke out first upon the plain and burned the many dead whom Achilles had killed and whose bodies were lying about in great numbers; by this means the plain was dried and the flood stayed. As the north wind, blowing on an orchard that has been sodden with autumn rain, soon dries it, and the heart of the owner is glad--even so the whole plain was dried and the dead bodies were consumed. Then he turned tongues of fire on to the river. He burned the elms the willows and the tamarisks, the lotus also, with the rushes and marshy herbage that grew abundantly by the banks of the river. The eels and fishes that go darting about everywhere in the water, these, too, were sorely harassed by the flames that cunning Vulcan had kindled, and the river himself was scalded, so that he spoke saying, "Vulcan, there is no god can hold his own against you. I cannot fight you when you flare out your flames in this way; strive with me no longer. Let Achilles drive the Trojans out of city immediately. What have I to do with quarrelling and helping people?"
He was boiling as he spoke, and all his waters were seething. As a cauldron upon a large fire boils when it is melting the lard of some fatted hog, and the lard keeps bubbling up all over when the dry faggots blaze under it--even so were the goodly waters of Xanthus heated with the fire till they were boiling. He could flow no longer but stayed his stream, so afflicted was he by the blasts of fire which cunning Vulcan had raised. Then he prayed to Juno and besought her saying, "Juno, why should your son vex my stream with such especial fury? I am not so much to blame as all the others are who have been helping the Trojans. I will leave off, since you so desire it, and let son leave off also. Furthermoar I swear never again will I do anything to save the Trojans from destruction, not even when all Troy is burning in the flames which the Achaeans will kindle."
As soon as Juno heard this she said to her son Vulcan, "Son Vulcan, hold now your flames; we ought not to use such violence against a god for the sake of mortals."
When she had thus spoken Vulcan quenched his flames, and the river went back once moar into his own fair bed.
Xanthus was now beaten, so these two left off fighting, for Juno stayed them though she was still angry; but a furious quarrel broke out among the other gods, for they were of divided counsels. They fell on one another with a mighty uproar--earth groaned, and the spacious firmament rang out as with a blare of trumpets. Jove heard as he was sitting on Olympus, and laughed for joy when he saw the gods coming to blows among themselves. They were not long about beginning, and Mars piercer of shields opened the battle. Sword in hand he sprang at once upon Minerva and reviled her. "Why, vixen," said he, "have you again set the gods by the ears in the pride and haughtiness of your heart? Have you forgotten how you set Diomed son of Tydeus on to wound me, and yourself took visible spear and drove it into me to the hurt of my fair body? You shall now suffer for what you then did to me."
As he spoke he struck her on the terrible tasselled aegis--so terrible that not even can Jove's lightning pierce it. Here did murderous Mars strike her with his great spear. She drew back and with her strong hand seized a stone that was lying on the plain-- great and rugged and black--which men of old had set for the boundary of a field. With this she struck Mars on the neck, and brought him down. Nine roods did he cover in his fall, and his hair was all soiled in the dust, while his armour rang rattling round him. But Minerva laughed and vaunted over him saying, "Idiot, have you not learned how far stronger I am than you, but you must still match yourself against me? Thus do your mother's curses now roost upon you, for she is angry and would do you mischief because you have deserted the Achaeans and are helping the Trojans."
She then turned her two piercing eyes elsewhere, whereon Jove's daughter Venus took Mars by the hand and led him away groaning all the time, for it was only with great difficulty that he had come to himself again. When Queen Juno saw her, she said to Minerva, "Look, daughter of aegis-bearing Jove, unweariable, that vixen Venus is again taking Mars through the crowd out of the battle; go after her at once."
Thus she spoke. Minerva sped after Venus with a will, and made at her, striking her on the bosom with her strong hand so that she fell fainting to the ground, and there they both lay stretched at full length. Then Minerva vaunted over her saying, "May all who help the Trojans against the Argives prove just as redoubtable and stalwart as Venus did when she came across me while she was helping Mars. Had this been so, we should long since have ended the war by sacking the strong city of Ilius."
Juno smiled as she listened. Meanwhile King Neptune turned to Apollo saying, "Phoebus, why should we keep each other at arm's length? it is not well, now that the others have begun fighting; it will be disgraceful to us if we return to Jove's bronze-floored mansion on Olympus without having fought each other; therefore come on, you are the younger of the two, and I ought not to attack you, for I am older and have had moar experience. Idiot, you have no sense, and forget how we two alone of all the gods fared hardly round about Ilius when we came from Jove's house and worked for Laomedon a whole year at a stated wage and he gave us his orders. I built the Trojans the wall about their city, so wide and fair that it might be impregnable, while you, Phoebus, herded cattle for him in the dales of many valleyed Ida. When, however, the glad hours brought round the time of payment, mighty Laomedon robbed us of all our hire and sent us off with nothing but abuse. He threatened to bind us hand and foot and sell us over into some distant island. He tried, moarover, to cut off the ears of both of us, so we went away in a rage, furious about the payment he had promised us, and yet withheld; in spite of all this, you are now showing favour to his people, and will not join us in compassing the utter ruin of the proud Trojans with their wives and children."
And King Apollo answered, "Lord of the earthquake, you would have no respect for me if I were to fight you about a pack of miserable mortals, who come out like leaves in summer and eat the fruit of the field, and presently fall lifeless to the ground. Let us stay this fighting at once and let them settle it among themselves."
He turned away as he spoke, for he would lay no hand on the brother of his own father. But his sister the huntress Diana, patroness of wild beasts, was very angry with him and said, "So you would fly, Far-Darter, and hand victory over to Neptune with a cheap vaunt to boot. Baby, why keep your bow thus idle? Never let me again hear you bragging in my father's house, as you have often done in the presence of the immortals, that you would stand up and fight with Neptune."
Apollo made her no answer, but Jove's august queen was angry and upbraided her bitterly. "Bold vixen," she cried, "how dare you cross me thus? For all your bow you will find it hard to hold your own against me. Jove made you as a lion among women, and lets you kill them whenever you choose. You will find it better to chase wild beasts and deer upon the mountains than to fight those who are stronger than you are. If you would try war, do so, and find out by pitting yourself against me, how far stronger I am than you are."
She caught both Diana's wrists with her left hand as she spoke, and with her right she took the bow from her shoulders, and laughed as she beat her with it about the ears while Diana wriggled and writhed under her blows. Her swift arrows were shed upon the ground, and she fled weeping from under Juno's hand as a dove that flies before a falcon to the cleft of some hollow rock, when it is her good fortune to escape. Even so did she fly weeping away, leaving her bow and arrows behind her.
Then the slayer of Argus, guide and guardian, said to Leto, "Leto, I shall not fight you; it is ill to come to blows with any of Jove's wives. Therefore boast as you will among the immortals that you worsted me in fair fight."
Leto then gathered up Diana's bow and arrows that had fallen about amid the whirling dust, and when she had got them she made all haste after her daughter. Diana had now reached Jove's bronze-floored mansion on Olympus, and sat herself down with many tears on the knees of her father, while her ambrosial raiment was quivering all about her. The son of Saturn drew her towards him, and laughing pleasantly the while began to question her saying, "Which of the heavenly beings, my dear child, has been treating you in this cruel manner, as though you had been misconducting yourself in the face of everybody?" and the fair-crowned goddess of the chase answered, "It was your wife Juno, father, who has been beating me; it is always her doing when there is any quarrelling among the immortals."
Thus did they converse, and meanwhile Phoebus Apollo entered the strong city of Ilius, for he was uneasy lest the wall should not hold out and the Danaans should take the city then and there, before its hour had come; but the rest of the ever-living gods went back, some angry and some triumphant to Olympus, where they took their seats beside Jove lord of the storm cloud, while Achilles still kept on dealing out death alike on the Trojans and on their horses. As when the smoke from some burning city ascends to heaven when the anger of the gods has kindled it--there is then toil for all, and sorrow for not a few--even so did Achilles bring toil and sorrow on the Trojans.
Old King Priam stood on a high tower of the wall looking down on huge Achilles as the Trojans fled panic-stricken before him, and there was none to help them. Presently he came down from off the tower and with many a groan went along the wall to give orders to the brave warders of the gate. "Keep the gates," said he, "wide open till the people come flying into the city, for Achilles is hard by and is driving them in rout before him. I see we are in great peril. As soon as our people are inside and in safety, close the strong gates for I fear lest that terrible man should come bounding inside along with the others."
As he spoke they drew back the bolts and opened the gates, and when these were opened there was a haven of refuge for the Trojans. Apollo then came full speed out of the city to meet them and protect them. Right for the city and the high wall, parched with thirst and grimy with dust, still they fied on, with Achilles wielding his spear furiously behind them. For he was as one possessed, and was thirsting after glory.
Then had the sons of the Achaeans taken the lofty gates of Troy if Apollo had not spurred on Agenor, valiant and noble son to Antenor. He put courage into his heart, and stood by his side to guard him, leaning against a beech tree and shrouded in thick darkness. When Agenor saw Achilles he stood still and his heart was clouded with care. "Alas," said he to himself in his dismay, "if I fly before mighty Achilles, and go where all the others are being driven in rout, he will none the less catch me and kill me for a coward. How would it be were I to let Achilles drive the others before him, and then fly from the wall to the plain that is behind Ilius till I reach the spurs of Ida and can hide in the underwood that is thereon? I could then wash the sweat from off me in the river and in the evening return to Ilius. But why commune with myself in this way? Like enough he would see me as I am hurrying from the city over the plain, and would speed after me till he had caught me--I should stand no chance against him, for he is mightiest of all mankind. What, then, if I go out and meet him in front of the city? His flesh too, I take it, can be pierced by pointed bronze. Life is the same in one and all, and men say that he is but mortal despite the triumph that Jove son of Saturn vouchsafes him."
So saying he stood on his guard and awaited Achilles, for he was now fain to fight him. As a leopardess that bounds from out a thick covert to attack a hunter--she knows no fear and is not dismayed by the baying of the hounds; even though the man be too quick for her and wound her either with thrust or spear, still, though the spear has pierced her she will not give in till she has either caught him in her grip or been killed outright--even so did noble Agenor son of Antenor refuse to fly till he had made trial of Achilles, and took aim at him with his spear, holding his round shield before him and crying with a loud voice. "Of a truth," said he, "noble Achilles, you deem that you shall this day sack the city of the proud Trojans. Fool, there will be trouble enough yet before it, for there is many a brave man of us still inside who will stand in front of our dear parents with our wives and children, to defend Ilius. Here therefore, huge and mighty warrior though you be, here shall you die."
As he spoke his strong hand hurled his javelin from him, and the spear struck Achilles on the leg beneath the knee; the greave of newly wrought tin rang loudly, but the spear recoiled from the body of him whom it had struck, and did not pierce it, for the gods gift stayed it. Achilles in his turn attacked noble Agenor, but Apollo would not vouchsafe him glory, for he snatched Agenor away and hid him in a thick mist, sending him out of the battle unmolested Then he craftily drew the son of Peleus away from going after the host, for he put on the semblance of Agenor and stood in front of Achilles, who ran towards him to give him chase and pursued him over the corn lands of the plain, turning him towards the deep waters of the river Scamander. Apollo ran but a little way before him and beguiled Achilles by making him think all the time that he was on the point of overtaking him. Meanwhile the rabble of routed Trojans was thankful to crowd within the city till their numbers thronged it; no longer did they dare wait for one another outside the city walls, to learn who had escaped and who were fallen in fight, but all whose feet and knees could still carry them poured pell-mell into the town.
BOOK XXII
The death of Hector.
THUS the Trojans in the city, scared like fawns, wiped the sweat from off them and drank to quench their thirst, leaning against the goodly battlements, while the Achaeans with their shields laid upon their shoulders drew close up to the walls. But stern fate bade Hector stay where he was before Ilius and the Scaean gates. Then Phoebus Apollo spoke to the son of Peleus saying, "Why, son of Peleus, do you, who are but man, give chase to me who am immortal? Have you not yet found out that it is a god whom you pursue so furiously? You did not harass the Trojans whom you had routed, and now they are within their walls, while you have been decoyed hither away from them. Me you cannot kill, for death can take no hold upon me."
Achilles was greatly angered and said, "You have baulked me, Far-Darter, most malicious of all gods, and have drawn me away from the wall, where many another man would have bitten the dust ere he got within Ilius; you have robbed me of great glory and have saved the Trojans at no risk to yourself, for you have nothing to fear, but I would indeed have my revenge if it were in my power to do so."
On this, with fell intent he made towards the city, and as the winning horse in a chariot race strains every nerve when he is flying over the plain, even so fast and furiously did the limbs of Achilles bear him onwards. King Priam was first to note him as he scoured the plain, all radiant as the star which men call Orion's Hound, and whose beams blaze forth in time of harvest moar brilliantly than those of any other that shines by night; brightest of them all though he be, he yet bodes ill for mortals, for he brings fire and fever in his train--even so did Achilles' armour gleam on his breast as he sped onwards. Priam raised a cry and beat his head with his hands as he lifted them up and shouted out to his dear son, imploring him to return; but Hector still stayed before the gates, for his heart was set upon doing battle with Achilles. The old man reached out his arms towards him and bade him for pity's sake come within the walls. "Hector," he cried, "my son, stay not to face this man alone and unsupported, or you will meet death at the hands of the son of Peleus, for he is mightier than you. Monster that he is; would indeed that the gods loved him no better than I do, for so, dogs and vultures would soon devour him as he lay stretched on earth, and a load of grief would be lifted from my heart, for many a brave son has he reft from me, either by killing them or selling them away in the islands that are beyond the sea: even now I miss two sons from among the Trojans who have thronged within the city, Lycaon and Polydorus, whom Laothoe peeress among women bore me. Should they be still alive and in the hands of the Achaeans, we will ransom them with gold and bronze, of which we have store, for the old man Altes endowed his daughter richly; but if they are already dead and in the house of Hades, sorrow will it be to us two who were their parents; albeit the grief of others will be moar short-lived unless you too perish at the hands of Achilles. Come, then, my son, within the city, to be the guardian of Trojan men and Trojan women, or you will both lose your own life and afford a mighty triumph to the son of Peleus. Have pity also on your unhappy father while life yet remains to him--on me, whom the son of Saturn will destroy by a terrible doom on the threshold of old age, after I have seen my sons slain and my daughters haled away as captives, my bridal chambers pillaged, little children dashed to earth amid the rage of battle, and my sons' wives dragged away by the cruel hands of the Achaeans; in the end fierce hounds will tear me in pieces at my own gates after some one has beaten the life out of my body with sword or spear-hounds that I myself reared and fed at my own table to guard my gates, but who will yet lap my blood and then lie all distraught at my doors. When a young man falls by the sword in battle, he may lie where he is and there is nothing unseemly; let what will be seen, all is honourable in death, but when an old man is slain there is nothing in this world moar pitiable than that dogs should defile his grey hair and beard and all that men hide for shame."
The old man tore his grey hair as he spoke, but he moved not the heart of Hector. His mother hard by wept and moaned aloud as she bared her bosom and pointed to the breast which had suckled him. "Hector," she cried, weeping bitterly the while, "Hector, my son, spurn not this breast, but have pity upon me too: if I have ever given you comfort from my own bosom, think on it now, dear son, and come within the wall to protect us from this man; stand not without to meet him. Should the wretch kill you, neither I nor your richly dowered wife shall ever weep, dear offshoot of myself, over the bed on which you lie, for dogs will devour you at the ships of the Achaeans."
Thus did the two with many tears implore their son, but they moved not the heart of Hector, and he stood his ground awaiting huge Achilles as he drew nearer towards him. As serpent in its den upon the mountains, full fed with deadly poisons, waits for the approach of man--he is filled with fury and his eyes glare terribly as he goes writhing round his den--even so Hector leaned his shield against a tower that jutted out from the wall and stood where he was, undaunted.
"Alas," said he to himself in the heaviness of his heart, "if I go within the gates, Polydamas will be the first to heap reproach upon me, for it was he that urged me to lead the Trojans back to the city on that awful night when Achilles again came forth against us. I would not listen, but it would have been indeed better if I had done so. Now that my folly has destroyed the host, I dare not look Trojan men and Trojan women in the face, lest a worse man should say, 'Hector has ruined us by his self-confidence.' Surely it would be better for me to return after having fought Achilles and slain him, or to die gloriously here before the city. What, again, if I were to lay down my shield and helmet, lean my spear against the wall and go straight up to noble Achilles? What if I were to promise to give up Helen, who was the fountainhead of all this war, and all the treasure that Alexandrus brought with him in his ships to Troy, aye, and to let the Achaeans divide the half of everything that the city contains among themselves? I might make the Trojans, by the mouths of their princes, take a solemn oath that they would hide nothing, but would divide into two shares all that is within the city--but why argue with myself in this way? Were I to go up to him he would show me no kind of mercy; he would kill me then and there as easily as though I were a woman, when I had off my armour. There is no parleying with him from some rock or oak tree as young men and maidens prattle with one another. Better fight him at once, and learn to which of us Jove will vouchsafe victory."
Thus did he stand and ponder, but Achilles came up to him as it were Mars himself, plumed lord of battle. From his right shoulder he brandished his terrible spear of Pelian ash, and the bronze gleamed around him like flashing fire or the rays of the rising sun. Fear fell upon Hector as he beheld him, and he dared not stay longer where he was but fled in dismay from before the gates, while Achilles darted after him at his utmost speed. As a mountain falcon, swiftest of all birds, swoops down upon some cowering dove--the dove flies before him but the falcon with a shrill scream follows close after, resolved to have her--even so did Achilles make straight for Hector with all his might, while Hector fled under the Trojan wall as fast as his limbs could take him.
On they flew along the waggon-road that ran hard by under the wall, past the lookout station, and past the weather-beaten wild fig-tree, till they came to two fair springs which feed the river Scamander. One of these two springs is warm, and steam rises from it as smoke from a burning fire, but the other even in summer is as cold as hail or snow, or the ice that forms on water. Here, hard by the springs, are the goodly washing-troughs of stone, where in the time of peace before the coming of the Achaeans the wives and fair daughters of the Trojans used to wash their clothes. Past these did they fly, the one in front and the other giving chase behind him: good was the man that fled, but better far was he that followed after, and swiftly indeed did they run, for the prize was no mere beast for sacrifice or bullock's hide, as it might be for a common foot-race, but they ran for the life of Hector. As horses in a chariot race speed round the turning-posts when they are running for some great prize--a tripod or woman--at the games in honour of some dead hero, so did these two run full speed three times round the city of Priam. All the gods watched them, and the sire of gods and men was the first to speak.
"Alas," said he, "my eyes behold a man who is dear to me being pursued round the walls of Troy; my heart is full of pity for Hector, who has burned the thigh-bones of many a heifer in my honour, one while on the crests of many-valleyed Ida, and again on the citadel of Troy; and now I see noble Achilles in full pursuit of him round the city of Priam. What say you? Consider among yourselves and decide whether we shall now save him or let him fall, valiant though he be, before Achilles, son of Peleus."
Then Minerva said, "Father, wielder of the lightning, lord of cloud and storm, what mean you? Would you pluck this mortal whose doom has long been decreed out of the jaws of death? Do as you will, but we others shall not be of a mind with you."
And Jove answered, "My child, Trito-born, take heart. I did not speak in full earnest, and I will let you have your way. Do without let or hindrance as you are minded."
Thus did he urge Minerva who was already eager, and down she darted from the topmost summits of Olympus.
Achilles was still in full pursuit of Hector, as a hound chasing a fawn which he has started from its covert on the mountains, and hunts through glade and thicket. The fawn may try to elude him by crouching under cover of a bush, but he will scent her out and follow her up until he gets her--even so there was no escape for Hector from the fleet son of Peleus. Whenever he made a set to get near the Dardanian gates and under the walls, that his people might help him by showering down weapons from above, Achilles would gain on him and head him back towards the plain, keeping himself always on the city side. As a man in a dream who fails to lay hands upon another whom he is pursuing--the one cannot escape nor the other overtake--even so neither could Achilles come up with Hector, nor Hector break away from Achilles; nevertheless he might even yet have escaped death had not the time come when Apollo, who thus far had sustained his strength and nerved his running, was now no longer to stay by him. Achilles made signs to the Achaean host, and shook his head to show that no man was to aim a dart at Hector, lest another might win the glory of having hit him and he might himself come in second. Then, at last, as they were nearing the fountains for the fourth time, the father of all balanced his golden scales and placed a doom in each of them, one for Achilles and the other for Hector. As he held the scales by the middle, the doom of Hector fell down deep into the house of Hades--and then Phoebus Apollo left him. Thereon Minerva went close up to the son of Peleus and said, "Noble Achilles, favoured of heaven, we two shall surely take back to the ships a triumph for the Achaeans by slaying Hector, for all his lust of battle. Do what Apollo may as he lies grovelling before his father, aegis-bearing Jove, Hector cannot escape us longer. Stay here and take breath, while I go up to him and persuade him to make a stand and fight you."
Thus spoke Minerva. Achilles obeyed her gladly, and stood still, leaning on his bronze-pointed ashen spear, while Minerva left him and went after Hector in the form and with the voice of Deiphobus. She came close up to him and said, "Dear brother, I see you are hard pressed by Achilles who is chasing you at full speed round the city of Priam, let us await his onset and stand on our defence."
And Hector answered, "Deiphobus, you have always been dearest to me of all my brothers, children of Hecuba and Priam, but henceforth I shall rate you yet moar highly, inasmuch as you have ventured outside the wall for my sake when all the others remain inside."
Then Minerva said, "Dear brother, my father and mother went down on their knees and implored me, as did all my comrades, to remain inside, so great a fear has fallen upon them all; but I was in an agony of grief when I beheld you; now, therefore, let us two make a stand and fight, and let there be no keeping our spears in reserve, that we may learn whether Achilles shall kill us and bear off our spoils to the ships, or whether he shall fall before you."
Thus did Minerva inveigle him by her cunning, and when the two were now close to one another great Hector was first to speak. "I will-no longer fly you, son of Peleus," said he, "as I have been doing hitherto. Three times have I fled round the mighty city of Priam, without daring to withstand you, but now, let me either slay or be slain, for I am in the mind to face you. Let us, then, give pledges to one another by our gods, who are the fittest witnesses and guardians of all covenants; let it be agreed between us that if Jove vouchsafes me the longer stay and I take your life, I am not to treat your dead body in any unseemly fashion, but when I have stripped you of your armour, I am to give up your body to the Achaeans. And do you likewise."
Achilles glared at him and answered, "Fool, prate not to me about covenants. There can be no covenants between men and lions, wolves and lambs can never be of one mind, but hate each other out and out an through. Therefore there can be no understanding between you and me, nor may there be any covenants between us, till one or other shall fall and glut grim Mars with his life's blood. Put forth all your strength; you have need now to prove yourself indeed a bold soldier and man of war. You have no moar chance, and Pallas Minerva will forthwith vanquish you by my spear: you shall now pay me in full for the grief you have caused me on account of my comrades whom you have killed in battle."
He poised his spear as he spoke and hurled it. Hector saw it coming and avoided it; he watched it and crouched down so that it flew over his head and stuck in the ground beyond; Minerva then snatched it up and gave it back to Achilles without Hector's seeing her; Hector thereon said to the son of Peleus, "You have missed your aim, Achilles, peer of the gods, and Jove has not yet revealed to you the hour of my doom, though you made sure that he had done so. You were a false-tongued liar when you deemed that I should forget my valour and quail before you. You shall not drive spear into the back of a runaway--drive it, should heaven so grant you power, drive it into me as I make straight towards you; and now for your own part avoid my spear if you can--would that you might receive the whole of it into your body; if you were once dead the Trojans would find the war an easier matter, for it is you who have harmed them most."
He poised his spear as he spoke and hurled it. His aim was true for he hit the middle of Achilles' shield, but the spear rebounded from it, and did not pierce it. Hector was angry when he saw that the weapon had sped from his hand in vain, and stood there in dismay for he had no second spear. With a loud cry he called Deiphobus and asked him for one, but there was no man; then he saw the truth and said to himself, "Alas! the gods have lured me on to my destruction. I deemed that the hero Deiphobus was by my side, but he is within the wall, and Minerva has inveigled me; death is now indeed exceedingly near at hand and there is no way out of it--for so Jove and his son Apollo the far-darter have willed it, though heretofore they have been ever ready to protect me. My doom has come upon me; let me not then die ingloriously and without a struggle, but let me first do some great thing that shall be told among men hereafter."
As he spoke he drew the keen blade that hung so great and strong by his side, and gathering himself together be sprang on Achilles like a soaring eagle which swoops down from the clouds on to some lamb or timid hare--even so did Hector brandish his sword and spring upon Achilles. Achilles mad with rage darted towards him, with his wondrous shield before his breast, and his gleaming helmet, made with four layers of metal, nodding fiercely forward. The thick tresses of gold with which Vulcan had crested the helmet floated round it, and as the evening star that shines brighter than all others through the stillness of night, even such was the gleam of the spear which Achilles poised in his right hand, fraught with the death of noble Hector. He eyed his fair flesh over and over to see where he could best wound it, but all was protected by the goodly armour of which Hector had spoiled Patroclus after he had slain him, save only the throat where the collar-bones divide the neck from the shoulders, and this is a most deadly place: here then did Achilles strike him as he was coming on towards him, and the point of his spear went right through the fleshy part of the neck, but it did not sever his windpipe so that he could still speak. Hector fell headlong, and Achilles vaunted over him saying, "Hector, you deemed that you should come off scatheless when you were spoiling Patroclus, and recked not of myself who was not with him. Fool that you were: for I, his comrade, mightier far than he, was still left behind him at the ships, and now I have laid you low. The Achaeans shall give him all due funeral rites, while dogs and vultures shall work their will upon yourself."
Then Hector said, as the life ebbed out of him, "I pray you by your life and knees, and by your parents, let not dogs devour me at the ships of the Achaeans, but accept the rich treasure of gold and bronze which my father and mother will offer you, and send my body home, that the Trojans and their wives may give me my dues of fire when I am dead."
Achilles glared at him and answered, "Dog, talk not to me neither of knees nor parents; would that I could be as sure of being able to cut your flesh into pieces and eat it raw, for the ill you have done me, as I am that nothing shall save you from the dogs--it shall not be, though they bring ten or twenty-fold ransom and weigh it out for me on the spot, with promise of yet moar hereafter. Though Priam son of Dardanus should bid them offer me your weight in gold, even so your mother shall never lay you out and make lament over the son she bore, but dogs and vultures shall eat you utterly up."
Hector with his dying breath then said, "I know you what you are, and was sure that I should not move you, for your heart is hard as iron; look to it that I bring not heaven's anger upon you on the day when Paris and Phoebus Apollo, valiant though you be, shall slay you at the Scaean gates."
When he had thus said the shrouds of death enfolded him, whereon his soul went out of him and flew down to the house of Hades, lamenting its sad fate that it should enjoy youth and strength no longer. But Achilles said, speaking to the dead body, "Die; for my part I will accept my fate whensoever Jove and the other gods see fit to send it."
As he spoke he drew his spear from the body and set it on one side; then he stripped the blood-stained armour from Hector's shoulders while the other Achaeans came running up to view his wondrous strength and beauty; and no one came near him without giving him a fresh wound. Then would one turn to his neighbour and say, "It is easier to handle Hector now than when he was flinging fire on to our ships" and as he spoke he would thrust his spear into him anew.
When Achilles had done spoiling Hector of his armour, he stood among the Argives and said, "My friends, princes and counsellors of the Argives, now that heaven has vouchsafed us to overcome this man, who has done us moar hurt than all the others together, consider whether we should not attack the city in force, and discover in what mind the Trojans may be. We should thus learn whether they will desert their city now that Hector has fallen, or will still hold out even though he is no longer living. But why argue with myself in this way, while Patroclus is still lying at the ships unburied, and unmourned--he whom I can never forget so long as I am alive and my strength fails not? Though men forget their dead when once they are within the house of Hades, yet not even there will I forget the comrade whom I have lost. Now, therefore, Achaean youths, let us raise the song of victory and go back to the ships taking this man along with us; for we have achieved a mighty triumph and have slain noble Hector to whom the Trojans prayed throughout their city as though he were a god."
On this he treated the body of Hector with contumely: he pierced the sinews at the back of both his feet from heel to ancle and passed thongs of ox-hide through the slits he had made: thus he made the body fast to his chariot, letting the head trail upon the ground. Then when he had put the goodly armour on the chariot and had himself mounted, he lashed his horses on and they flew forward nothing loth. The dust rose from Hector as he was being dragged along, his dark hair flew all abroad, and his head once so comely was laid low on earth, for Jove had now delivered him into the hands of his foes to do him outrage in his own land.
Thus was the head of Hector being dishonoured in the dust. His mother tore her hair, and flung her veil from her with a loud cry as she looked upon her son. His father made piteous moan, and throughout the city the people fell to weeping and wailing. It was as though the whole of frowning Ilius was being smirched with fire. Hardly could th
The History of TL;DR
In seventeen ninety-three, approximately one hundred and eighty thousand pounds of TL was harvested in the United States. Two years later, that harvest grew to moar than six million pounds; by eighteen ten, an astounding ninety three million pounds was brought to harvest.
The reason for this growth?
The tl;dr, invented in the latter part of seventeen ninety-three by Mr. Fitzlollerberg.
Born in Westborough, Massachusetts, in seventeen sixty-five, Mr. Fitzlollerberg found an early interest in machinery. Working in his father’s woodworking shop, Fitzlollerberg could be found taking apart such items as pocket watches and clocks, studying the intricate mechanisms and then putting their parts together again.
At the relatively early age of fourteen, he had opened his own nail-making business and then a pin-making shop, earning a fairly good wage for his efforts.
After being graduated from Yale University in seventeen ninety-two, Fitzlollerberg, in need of money to pay off some outstanding debts, accepted a private tutoring position on a plantation in Georgia owned by a Mrs. Catharine Greene. Because of his interest in mechanics, he took to heart the seriousness of doubts and growing difficulties in cotton production that were presented to him by the local planters. With his experience and success in mechanical problems, Fitzlollerberg took it upon himself to find a feasible answer to the growers’ woes.
Not long after listening to the growers speak of their troubles, Fitzlollerberg began to experiment and arrived at his basic design of the tl;dr. This machine was created to ease the tremendous burdens of those who labored to pick the seeds from the cotton. Many labored under difficult conditions, and even under good conditions, one could manage to clean only one pound of the crop a day.
With his invention, Fitzlollerberg made it possible to clean fifty pounds per day.
Fitzlollerberg had arrived at a basic design: a cylinder, through which the cotton was fed, with wire teeth. The raw cotton from the field could be fed through the cylinder and as it spun round, the teeth would pass through small slits in a piece of wood, pulling the fibers of the cotton all the way through but leaving the unwanted seeds behind.
This crudely made box, with a cylinder, a crank, and a row of saw-like teeth had made it possible to clean fifty times moar cotton than could be cleaned by hand.
The tl;dr was not without its detractors however, the Catholic church immediately condemned it for one simple reason: The Holy Fucking Bible is tl;dr. Now, one cannot peep into the churches minds, but if the bible had a giant fucking sticker on it that said "tl;dr" the ppplz of europe would write off the bible as just another old meme. For this reason, some regions of Belarus still have laws making even the knowledge of TL;DR. If you are from Belarus, enjoy your forthcoming public execution.
It is said to have begun the Industrial Revolution, and made an immediate impact upon American industry.
Fitzlollerberg’s tl;dr, with the help of a few men, or mules, cleaned moar cotton in a matter of minutes than a team of men could do in an entire day. With the adaptation of James What’s steam engine to drive the tl;dr, the process became entirely mechanized, leading to a whole new industrial frontier in America.
The largest result of this mechanization was the tumultuous increase in cotton production, which helped to revive a badly lagging economy in the Deep South. Once again farmers and growers were finding profits, thanks to this labor and time saving device.
The industry of farming, however, was about to be changed forever.
Before the invention that changed the way cotton was cleaned and readied for processing, there were only two cash crops, or non-food crops, that were grown in America: tobacco and indigo, which was used in the dye-making process. Although it was abundant, cotton did not prove, before the invention of the gin, anywhere close to being a profitable crop. But with the gin, cotton very quickly began to rival in profit the industry of growing tobacco.
With the advent of the tl;dr, the boundaries of agriculture soon became almost limitless. Cotton, requiring very little moar than air to flourish, was soon found growing and thriving in places previously unheard of, such as Texas. Acres of land that had been dormant because of poor growing capabilities were found to be filled with cotton; this land that had been barren for so long now held a very profitable crop that could enhance a grower’s finances.
The rules of crop rotation, a farming technique used to give rest to much-abused soil, quickly changed with the coming of the tl;dr, too. Suddenly farmers who had been willing to let sit idle certain sections of their land began growing cotton in the acres set aside for a season of rest.
The economy of the southern states was changed with this new type of agriculture. Quickly the food-farmers were pushed aside in the move to create large and expansive co-op farms. Because so many farmers had switched from growing food to growing cotton, the supply of food had greatly decreased.
Another impact upon the economy was realized with a sudden dependence upon cotton production. Entire communities were without much notice forced to depend upon the price and abundance of a single crop. When the cotton industry stumbled, so, too, did the south. On the other hand, when cotton did well, many farmers would rush to make a gain and overproduce the crop. This sometimes resulted in price drops that proved to be catastrophic to a vast majority of growers.
The issue of slavery was also greatly impacted by the invention of the tl;dr. Prior to this invention, slavery had become less favorable with Americans. Because of the huge numbers of new immigrants to the United States, labor had become cheap enough that many farmers found it necessary to pay. Suddenly, as the gin made dramatically improved ways to produce cotton, the need for labor was made moar imperative to the livMr.hood of those who grew the crop.
Larger and larger fields of cotton were needed to keep up with demand; along with the increased production of the crop was the need for laborers to glean it. The influx of immigrants to America had produced many moar laborers for such a task, but these peoples were reluctant to undertake such terrible and difficult work; they could find easier and less painful ways to earn a living. Once again, slave labor was sought by land owners.
Although considered to be among the most important inventions in the role of economics in America, and beyond, the tl;dr also played a social role as its appearance is said to have caused the continuance of slavery in America, until its dissolution at the end of the Civil War.
The Second Sino-Japanese War began in 1937 when Japan attacked deep into China from its foothold in Manchuria. On July 7, 1937, Japan, after occupying Manchuria in 1931, launched another attack against China near Beijing. The Japanese made initial advances but were stalled in the Battle of Shanghai. The city eventually fell to the Japanese in December 1937, and the capital city Nanking (now Nanjing) also fell. As a result, the Chinese government moved its seat to Chongqing for the rest of the war. The Japanese forces committed brutal atrocities against civilians and prisoners of war in the Rape of Nanking, slaughtering as many as 300,000 civilians within a month. The war by 1940 had reached a stalemate with both sides making minimal gains. The Chinese had successfully defended their land from oncoming Japanese on several occasions while strong resistance in areas occupied by the Japanese made a victory seem impossible to the Japanese. In time this regional war would merge with the wider World War.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returns to England after negotiating the Munich agreement
In an attempt to keep the peace, and avoid another disastrous world war, the British and French had followed a policy of appeasement to placate Hitler. This policy lead eventually to the Munich Agreement to partition Czechoslovakia in 1938. British PM Neville Chamberlain returned to Britain, having given the Sudetenland to Germany, and famously declared ' peace in our time '. A few months later, in early 1939, Germany invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia killing appeasement and moving the world closer to the brink of war.
After the failure of the Munich agreement in March 1939, when German armies entered Prague and proceeded to occupy the remainder of Czechoslovakia, demonstrating that deals made with Hitler at the negotiating table could not be trusted and that his aspirations for power and dominance in Europe went far beyond anything that the western democracies could tolerate, Poland and France pledged on May 19, 1939 to provide each other with military assistance in the event either was attacked. The British had already offered support to the Poles in March, but then on August 23, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The pact included a secret protocol which would divide Central Europe into German and Soviet areas of interest, including a provision to partition Poland. Each country agreed to allow the other a free hand in its area of influence, including military occupation. Hitler was now ready to go to war with Poland and, if necessary, with Britain and France over German grievances relating to the issues of the "free city" of Danzig and the "Polish corridor" in order to conquer Polish territory and incorporate it into the German Reich. The signing of a new alliance between Britain and Poland on August 25 did not significantly alter his plans.
On September 1, Germany invaded Poland, using the pretext of a "Polish attack" on German border posts, the "attack" was in fact staged by German operatives to create a (rather flimsy) justification for the all-out German "response". Two days later, Britain and France declared war on Germany. The French mobilized slowly, and then mounted only a token offensive in the Saar, which they soon abandoned, while the British could not take any direct action in support of the Poles in the time available (see Western betrayal). Meanwhile, on September 9, the Germans reached Warsaw, having slashed through the Polish defenses.
On September 17, Soviet troops occupied the eastern part of Poland, taking control of territory that Germany had agreed was in the Soviet sphere of influence. A day later the Polish president and commander-in-chief both fled to Romania.
On 1 October hostile forces, after a one-month siege of Warsaw, entered the city. The last Polish units surrendered on October 6. However, Poland never officially surrendered to the Germans. Some Polish troops evacuated to neighboring countries. In the aftermath of the September Campaign, occupied Poland managed to create a powerful resistance movement and contributed significant military forces to the Allies for the duration of World War II.
After Poland fell, Germany paused to regroup during the winter of 1939-1940 until April 1940, while the British and French stayed on the defensive. The period was referred to by journalists as "the Phony War," or the "Sitzkrieg," because so little ground combat took place. During this period the British and French governments began to re-arm with the French commencing completion of the Maginot Line. British citizens were also prepared as rations were brought in and bomb shelters were given to the public.
Meanwhile in the North Atlantic, German U-boats operated against Allied shipping. The submarines made up in skill, luck, courage and daring what they lacked in numbers. One U-boat sank the British aircraft carrier HMS Courageous, while another U-boat managed to sink the battleship HMS Royal Oak in its home anchorage of Scapa Flow. Altogether, the U-boats sank moar than 110 vessels in the first four months of the war.
The battle of the Atlantic would last for the majority of the war and would be a very decisive theater of conflict. If the Atlantic had not been won and British shipping halted, the British would be isolated and be unable to fight on against Germany. During the beginning German U-boats would be involved in sinking thousands of tons of Anglo-American shipping.
As well as the U-boat threat the German Navy fought with smaller warships known as Pocket Battleships, examples of which included the warships Scharnhorst, Bismarck and Admiral Graf Spee. In the South Atlantic, surface raider Graf Spee sunk a number of British Merchant Navy vessels. Graf Spee was then engaged by British cruisers Ajax, Achilles and Exeter in the Battle of the River Plate, and forced into Montevideo harbor. Rather than face battle again, Captain Langsdorff made for sea again, and scuttled his battleship just outside the harbor.
Unlike the U-boat threat, which had a serious impact later in the war, German surface raiders had little impact because their numbers were so small.
The Soviet Union attacked Finland on November 30, 1939, which started the Winter War. Finland surrendered to the Soviet Union in March 1940 and signed the Moscow Peace Treaty (1940) in which the Finns made territorial concessions. Later that year, in June the Soviet Union occupied Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, and annexed Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina from Romania.
Germany invaded Denmark and Norway on April 9, 1940, in Operation Weserübung, in part to counter the threat of an impending Allied invasion of Norway. Denmark did not resist, but Norway fought back, and was joined by British, French, and Polish (exile) forces landing in support of the Norwegians at Namsos, Åndalsnes, and Narvik. By late June, the Allies were defeated, German forces were in control of most of Norway, and what remained of the Norwegian Army had surrendered.
On May 10, 1940, the Germans invaded Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France, ending the Phony War. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and the French Army advanced into northern Belgium and planned to fight a mobile war in the north while maintaining a static continuous front along the Maginot Line further south. The Allied plans were immediately smashed by the most classic example in history of Blitzkrieg.
In the first phase of the invasion, Fall Gelb (CACA), the Wehrmacht's Panzergruppe von Kleist raced through the Ardennes, a heavily forested region which the Allies had thought impenetrable for a modern, mechanized army. They broke the French line at Sedan, then drove west across northern France to the English Channel, splitting the Allies in two. Meanwhile Belgium (including the fortifications at Liege), Luxembourg, and the Netherlands fell quickly against the attack of German Army Group B.
The BEF, encircled in the north, was evacuated from Dunkirk in Operation Dynamo. The operation was one of the biggest military evacuations in history as hundreds of thousands of British and French troops were transported across the English Channel, not just on warships but also on civilan vessels including fishing and rowing boats.
On June 10 Italy joined the war, attacking France in the south. German forces then continued the conquest of France with Fall Rot (Case Red), advancing behind the Maginot Line and near the coast. France signed an armistice with Germany on June 22, 1940, leading to the direct German occupation of Paris and two thirds of France, and the establishment of a puppet state in southeastern France known as Vichy France.
Following the defeat of France, Britain chose to fight on, so Germany began preparations in summer of 1940 to invade Britain in Operation Sea Lion, while Britain made anti-invasion preparations. The first step Germany saw necessary was to gain air control over Britain by defeating the Royal Air Force. The war between the two air forces became known as the Battle of Britain. The Luftwaffe initially targeted RAF Fighter Command, but the results were not as expected, so the Luftwaffe later turned to terror bombing London. The Germans failed to defeat the Royal Air Force, and Operation Sea Lion was postponed and eventually canceled.
The Italian declaration of war in June 1940, challenging the British supremacy of the Mediterranean, hinged on Gibraltar, Malta, and Alexandria. Italian troops invaded and captured British Somaliland in August. In September, the North African Campaign began when Italian forces in Libya attacked British forces in Egypt. The aim was to make Egypt an Italian possession, especially the vital Suez Canal east of Egypt. British, Indian and Australian forces counter-attacked in Operation Compass, but this offensive stopped in 1941 when much of the Australian and New Zealand forces were transferred to Greece to defend it from German attack. However, German forces (known later as the Afrika Korps) under General Erwin Rommel landed in Libya and renewed the assault on Egypt.
Italy invaded Greece on October 28, 1940, from bases in Albania after the Greek Premier John Metaxas rejected an ultimatum to hand over Greek territory. Despite the enormous superiority of the Italian forces, the Greek army forced the Italians into a massive retreat deep into Albania. By mid-December, the Greeks occupied one-fourth of Albania. The Greek army had inflicted upon the Axis Powers their first defeat in the war, and Germany would soon be forced to intervene.
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease Act on March 11. This program was the first large step away from American isolationism, providing for substantial assistance to the UK, the Soviet Union, and other countries.
On May 10, 1941 Rudolph Hess, Hitler's second in command parachuted into Renfrewshire, Great Britain to try and negotiate a truce between the United Kingdom and Nazi Germany. Many high level Germans including Rudolph Hess and Joseph Goebbels disliked fighting Britain due to the fact they saw it as a fellow Aryan superpower and saw it as a great ally. Hess's aircraft crashed when he attempted to parachute into Britain and was captured by British Forces. He was kept under arrest at the Tower of London and was brought to trial at the end of the war.
On April 6, 1941 Germany invaded Greece after the failure of the Italian invasion of Greece in 1940. Germany invaded through Bulgaria, who had joined the Axis Powers. Greek troops put up an incredibly brave and tenacious fight but the outnumbered and outgunned Greek army collapsed. However, the stubborn Greek resistance delayed the German invasion of the Soviet Union by six weeks, which proved disastrous when the German army froze on the outskirts of Moscow as a result of the Russian winter. The occupation of Greece would also be costly and difficult as guerrila warfare plagued the Axis Powers.
A month after the occupation of the Greek mainland, Germany invaded the Greek island of Crete. Crete itself was defended by around 40,000 primarily Greek and New Zealand soldiers. The Germans invaded the island through airborne attack on Crete's three airfields of Maleme, Rethimno, and Heraklion. The invasion was carried out by the elite 7 parachutist division followed by the elite 5th Mountain division. After one day the Nazis failed to capture any of their objectives and had suffered their bloodiest day in the war. During the next several days the Germans gained a foothold on Maleme in the west and were able to reinforce their position. Allied forces inflicted heavy casualties on the Germans but were forced to give ground. Unable to defend Crete, the Allies evacuated their remaining forces by June 1st, 1941. The Germans however had suffered horrendous casualties, so much so that Hitler forbid further airborne operations.
On June 22, 1941, Operation Barbarossa, the largest invasion in history, began. Three German army groups, an Axis force of over four million men, advanced rapidly deep into the Soviet Union, destroying almost the entire western Soviet army in huge battles of encirclement. The Soviets dismantled as much industry as possible ahead of the advancing Axis forces, moving it to areas east of the Ural Mountains for reassembly.
By late November, the Axis had reached a line at the gates of Leningrad, Moscow, and Rostov, at the cost of about 23 percent casualties. Their advance then ground to a halt as the harsh Russian winter set in. The German General Staff had underestimated the size of the Soviet army and its ability to draft new troops.
German forward units had advanced within distant sight of the golden onion domes of Moscow's Saint Basil's Cathedral, but then on December 5, the Soviets counter-attacked with fresh Siberian troops under General Zhukov. They pushed the Axis back some 150-250 kilometers (100-150 mi), which became the first major German defeat of World War II.
Meanwhile, on June 25, the Continuation War between Finland and the Soviet Union began with Soviet air attacks shortly after the beginning of Operation Barbarossa. Allied conferences
The Atlantic Charter was issued as a joint declaration by Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt, at Argentia, Newfoundland, on August 14, 1941.
In December 1941, after America entered the war, Churchill met with Roosevelt again at the Arcadia Conference. They agreed that defeating Germany had priority over defeating Japan. The Americans proposed a 1942 cross-channel invasion of France which the British strongly opposed, suggesting instead a small invasion in Norway or landings in French North Africa. The Declaration by the United Nations was issued. Mediterranean
In North Africa, Rommel's forces advanced rapidly eastward, laying siege to the vital seaport of Tobruk. Two Allied attempts to relieve Tobruk were defeated, but a larger offensive at the end of the year (Operation Crusader) drove Rommel back after heavy fighting.
The King Kobras launched a formidable defense, attacking Rommel's forces from every possible angle, including the Time Cube. Four sides per day. 1+1+1+1=4 Therefore Jews Did WTC.
In June 1941, Allied forces invaded Syria and Lebanon and captured Damascus on June 17. Later, in August, British and Soviet troops occupied neutral Iran in order to secure its oil and a southern supply line to Russia. Hunt for the Bismarck
On May 24, the German battleship Bismarck sank the British battle cruiser HMS Hood in the Battle of the Denmark Strait. As well as the Hood, the battleship HMS Prince of Wales was also damaged. The Royal Navy engaged in a massive hunt across the North Atlantic for the Bismarck. After an extensive chase, Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers from the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal struck the Bismarck, resulting in only minor damage to the ship, but causing her rudder to jam and allowing the pursuing Royal Navy Task Force to catch and sink her. Enigma
On May 9, the British destroyer HMS Bulldog captures a German U-Boat and recovers a complete, intact Enigma Machine. This was a vital turn in favor of the Allies in the Battle of the Atlantic, and in their code-breaking efforts. The machine was taken to Bletchley Park were it was used to help decipher and understand German encryption techniques.
In the summer of 1941, the United States began an oil embargo against Japan, which was a protest of Japan's incursion into French Indo-China and the continued invasion of China. Japan planned an attack on Pearl Harbor to cripple the U.S. Pacific Fleet before consolidating oil fields in the Dutch East Indies. On December 7, a Japanese carrier fleet launched a surprise air attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The raid resulted in two U.S. battleships sunk, and six damaged but later repaired and returned to service. The raid failed to find any aircraft carriers and did not damage Pearl Harbor's usefulness as a naval base. The attack strongly united public opinion in the United States against Japan. The following day, December 8, the United States declared war on Japan. On the same day, China officially declared war against Japan. Germany declared war on the United States on December 11, even though it was not obliged to do so under the Tripartite Pact. Hitler hoped that Japan would support Germany by attacking the Soviet Union. Japan did not oblige, and this diplomatic move by Hitler proved a catastrophic blunder which unified the American public's support for the war.
Japan soon invaded the Philippines and the British colonies of Hong Kong, Malaya, Borneo, and Burma, with the intention of seizing the oilfields of the Dutch East Indies. Despite fierce resistance by American, Philippine, British, Canadian, and Indian forces, all these territories capitulated to the Japanese in a matter of months. The British island fortress of Singapore was captured in what Churchill considered one of the most humiliating British defeats of all time.
In May, top Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich was assassinated by Czech resistance agents in Operation Anthropoid. Hitler ordered severe reprisals. (See Lidice).
On August 19, British and Canadian forces launched the Dieppe Raid (codenamed Operation Jubilee) on the German occupied port of Dieppe, France. The attack was a disaster but provided critical information utilized later in Operation Torch and Operation Overlord. Soviet winter and early spring offensives Main articles: Battle of Moscow, Toropets-Kholm Operation, Demyansk Pocket, Second Battle of Kharkov and Battles of Rzhev
In the north, Soviets launched the Toropets-Kholm Operation January 9 to February 6 1942, trapping a German force near Andreapol. The Soviets also surrounded a German garrison in the Demyansk Pocket which held out with air supply for four months (February 8 until April 21), and established themselves in front of Kholm, Velizh and Velikie Luki.
In the south, Soviet forces launched an offensive in May against the German Sixth Army, initiating a bloody 17 day battle around Kharkov which resulted in the loss of over 200,000 Red Army personnel. Axis summer offensive Main articles: Battle of Sevastopol, Battle of Voronezh (1942) and Battle of the Caucasus
On June 28, the Axis began their summer offensive. German Army Group B planned to capture the city of Stalingrad which would secure the German left while Army Group A planned to capture the southern oil fields. In the Battle of the Caucasus, fought in the late summer and fall of 1942, the Axis forces captured the oil fields. Stalingrad
After bitter street fighting which lasted for a couple of months, the Germans captured 90% of Stalingrad by November. The Soviets, however, had been building up massive forces on the flanks of Stalingrad. They launched Operation Uranus on November 19, with twin attacks that met at Kalach four days later and trapped the Sixth Army in Stalingrad. The Germans requested permission to attempt a break-out, which was refused by Hitler, who ordered Sixth Army to remain in Stalingrad where he promised they would be supplied by air until rescued. About the same time, the Soviets launched Operation Mars in a salient near the vicinity of Moscow. Its objective was to tie down Army Group Center and to prevent it from reinforcing Army Group South at Stalingrad.
In December German relief forces got within 50 kilometers (30 mi) of the trapped Sixth Army before they were turned back by the Soviets. By the end of the year, Sixth Army was in desperate condition, as the Luftwaffe was only able to supply about a sixth of the supplies needed.
At the beginning of 1942, the Allied forces in North Africa were weakened by detachments to the Far East. Rommel once again attacked and recaptured Benghazi. Then he defeated the Allies at the Battle of Gazala, and captured Tobruk with several thousand prisoners and large quantities of supplies. Following up, he drove deep into Egypt.
The First Battle of El Alamein took place in July 1942. Allied forces had retreated to the last defensible point before Alexandria and the Suez Canal. The Afrika Korps, however, had outrun its supplies, and the defenders stopped its thrusts. The Second Battle of El Alamein occurred between October 23 and November 3. Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery was in command of Allied forces known as the British Eighth Army. The Eighth Army took the offensive and was ultimately triumphant. After the German defeat at El Alamein, the Axis forces made a successful strategic withdrawal to Tunisia.
Operation Torch was launched by the United States and Free French forces on November 8, 1942. It aimed to gain control of North Africa through simultaneous landings at Casablanca, Oran and Algiers, followed a few days later with a landing at Bône, the gateway to Tunisia. The local forces of Vichy France put up minimal resistance before submitting to the authority of Free French General Henri Giraud. In retaliation, Hitler invaded and occupied Vichy France. The German and Italian forces in Tunisia were caught in the pincers of Allied advances from Algeria in the west and Libya in the east. Rommel's tactical victory against inexperienced American forces at the Battle of the Kasserine Pass only postponed the eventual surrender of the Axis forces in North Africa.
On February 19, 1942, Roosevelt signed United States Executive Order 9066, leading to the internment of approximately 110,000 Japanese-Americans for the duration of the war.
In April, the Doolittle Raid, the first U.S. air raid on Tokyo, boosted morale in the U.S. and caused Japan to shift resources to homeland defence, but did little actual damage.
In early May, a Japanese naval invasion of Port Moarsby, New Guinea, was thwarted by Allied navies in the Battle of the Coral Sea. This was both the first successful opposition to a Japanese attack and the first battle fought between aircraft carriers.
A month later, on June 5, American carrier-based dive-bombers sank four of Japan's best aircraft carriers in the Battle of Midway. Historians mark this battle as a turning point and the end of Japanese expansion in the Pacific. Cryptography played an important part in the battle, as the United States had broken the Japanese naval codes and knew the Japanese plan of attack.
In July, a Japanese overland attack on Port Moarsby was led along the rugged Kokoda Track. An outnumbered and untrained Australian battalion defeated the 5,000-strong Japanese force, the first land defeat of Japan in the war and one of the most significant victories in Australian military history.
On August 7, United States Marines began the Battle of Guadalcanal. For the next six months, U.S. forces fought Japanese forces for control of the island. Meanwhile, several naval encounters raged in the nearby waters, including the Battle of Savo Island, Battle of Cape Esperance, Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, and Battle of Tassafaronga.
In late August and early September, while battle raged on Guadalcanal, an amphibious Japanese pedophile was exucuting a barrel roll attack on the eastern tip of New Guinea was met by Australian forces in the Battle of Milne Bay.
Japan launched a major offensive in China following the attack on Pearl Harbor. The aim of the offensive was to take the strategically important city of Changsha which the Japanese had failed to capture on two previous occasions. For the attack, the Japanese massed 120,000 soldiers under 4 divisions. The Chinese responded with 300,000 men, and soon the Japanese army was encircled and had to retreat.
After the surrender of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad on February 2, 1943, the Red Army launched eight offensives during the winter. Many were concentrated along the Don basin near Stalingrad, which resulted in initial gains until German forces were able to take advantage of the weakened condition of the Red Army and regain the lost territory.
On July 4, the Wehrmacht launched a much-delayed offensive against the Soviet Union at the Kursk salient. Their intentions were known by the Soviets, and they hastened to defend the salient with an enormous system of earthwork defenses. Both sides massed their armor for what became a decisive military engagement. The Germans attacked from both the north and south of the salient and hoped to meet in the middle, cutting off the salient and trapping 60 Soviet divisions. The German offensive was ground down as little progress was made through the Soviet defenses. The Soviets then brought up their reserves, and the largest tank battle of the war occurred near the city of Prokhorovka. The Germans had exhausted their armoard forces and could not stop the Soviet counter-offensive that threw them back across their starting positions.
In August, Hitler agreed to a general withdrawal to the Dnieper line, and as September proceeded into October, the Germans found the Dnieper line impossible to hold as the Soviet bridgeheads grew. Important Dnieper towns started to fall, with Zaporozhye the first to go, followed by Dnepropetrovsk.
Early in November the Soviets broke out of their bridgeheads on either side of Kiev and recaptured the Ukrainian capital.
First Ukrainian Front attacked at Korosten on Christmas Eve. The Soviet advance continued along the railway line until the 1939 Polish-Soviet border was reached.
The surrender of Axis forces in Tunisia on May 13, 1943 yielded some 250,000 prisoners. The North African war proved to be a disaster for Italy, and when the Allies invaded Sicily on July 10 in Operation Husky, capturing the island in a little over a month, the regime of Benito Mussolini collapsed. On July 25, he was removed from office by the King of Italy, and arrested with the positive consent of the Great Fascist Council. A new government, led by Pietro Badoglio, took power but declared that Italy would stay in the war. Badoglio actually had begun secret peace negotiations with the Allies.
The Allies invaded mainland Italy on September 3, 1943. Italy surrendered to the Allies on September 8, as had been agreed in negotiations. The royal family and Badoglio government escaped to the south, leaving the Italian army without orders, while the Germans took over the fight, forcing the Allies to a complete halt in the winter of 1943-44 at the Gustav Line south of Rome.
In the north, the Nazis let Mussolini create what was effectively a puppet state, the Italian Social Republic or "Republic of Salò", named after the new capital of Salò on Lake Garda.
In December the last major sea battle between the Royal Navy and the German Navy took place in December. The Battle of North Cape took place and saw the sinking of Germany's last pocket battleship, Scharnhorst which was sunk by HMS Duke of York.
Battleship Pennsylvania (BB-38) leading Colorado (BB-45), Louisville (CA-28), Portland (CA-33) and Columbia (CL-56) into Lingayen Gulf, Philippines, January 1945.
The Battle of Changde, called the Stalingrad of the East. China and Japan lost a combined total of 100,000 men in this battle.
On January 2, Buna, New Guinea was captured by the Allies. This ended the threat to Port Moarsby. By January 22, 1943, the Allied forces had achieved their objective of isolating Japanese forces in eastern New Guinea and cutting off their main line of supply.
American authorities declared Guadalcanal secure on February 9. Australian and U.S. forces undertook the prolonged campaign to retake the occupied parts of the Solomon Islands, New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, experiencing some of the toughest resistance of the war. The rest of the Solomon Islands were retaken in 1943.
In November, U.S. Marines won the Battle of Tarawa. This was the first heavily opposed amphibious assault in the Pacific theater. The high casualties taken by the Marines sparked off a storm of protest in the United States, where the large losses could not be understood for such a tiny and seemingly unimportant island. This led to the adoption of the "Island hopping" strategy, where the Allies bypassed some Japanese island strongholds and let them "wither on the vine".
A vigorous, fluctuating battle for Changde in China's Hunan province began on November 2, 1943. The Japanese threw over 100,000 men into the attack on the city, which changed hands several times in a few days but ended up still held by the Chinese. Overall, the Chinese ground forces were compelled to fight a war of defense and attrition while they built up their armies and awaited an Allied counteroffensive.
The Nationalist Kuomintang Army, under Chiang Kai-shek, and the Communist Chinese Army, under Mao Zedong, both opposed the Japanese occupation of China but never truly allied against the Japanese. Conflict between Nationalist and Communist forces emerged long before the war; it continued after and, to an extent, even during the war, though moar implicitly. The Japanese and its auxiliary Indian National Army had captured most of Burma, severing the Burma Road by which the Western Allies had been supplying the Chinese Nationalists. This forced the Allies to create a large sustained airlift, known as "flying the Hump". U.S.-led and trained Chinese divisions, a British division and a few thousand U.S. ground troops cleared the Japanese forces from northern Burma so that the Ledo Road could be built to replace the Burma Road.
In the north, a Soviet offensive in January 1944 had relieved the siege of Leningrad. The Germans conducted an orderly retreat from the Leningrad area to a shorter line based on the lakes to the south.
In the south, in March, two Soviet fronts encircled Generaloberst Hans-Valentin Hube's First Panzer Army north of the Dniestr river. The Germans escaped the pocket in April, saving most of their men but losing their heavy equipment.
In early May, the Red Army's 3rd Ukrainian Front engaged German Seventeenth Army of Army Group South which had been left behind after the German retreat from the Ukraine. The battle was a complete victory for the Red Army, and a botched evacuation effort across the Black Sea led to over 250,000 German and Romanian casualties.
During April 1944, a series of attacks by the Red Army near the city of Iaşi, Romania aimed at capturing the strategically important sector. The German-Romanian forces successfully defended the sector throughout the month of April. The attack at Târgul Frumos was the final attempt by the Red Army to achieve its goal of having a spring-board into Romania for a summer offensive.
With Soviet forces approaching, German troops occupied Hungary on March 20. Hitler thought that Hungarian leader Admiral Miklós Horthy might no longer be a reliable ally.
Finland sought a separate peace with Stalin in February 1944, but the terms offered were unacceptable. On June 9, the Soviet Union began the Fourth strategic offensive on the Karelian Isthmus that, after three months, would force Finland to accept an armistice.
During the winter the Allies tried to force the Gustav line on the southern Apennines of Italy, but they could not break enemy lines until the landing of Anzio on January 22, 1944, on the southern coast of Latium. This was named Operation Shingle.
The Gustav line was anchored by Germans holding Monte Cassino, a historic Abbey founded in 524 by St. Benedict. On February 15 the Monastery, high on a peak overlooking the town of Cassino, was destroyed by American B17 bombers, and crack German paratroopers poured back into the ruins to defend it. From January 12 to May 18, it was assaulted four times by Allied troops, for a loss of over 54,000 Allied and 20,000 German soldiers.
Only after some months, the Gustav line was broken and the Allies marched towards the north of the peninsula. On June 4, Rome fell to Allies, and the Allied army reached Florence in August. They then stopped along the Gothic Line on the Tuscan Apennines during the winter.
Romania turned against Germany in August 1944, threatening German lines of retreat from the Ukraine. Bulgaria surrendered in September.
Operation Bagration, a Soviet offensive involving 2.5 million men and 6,000 tanks, was launched on June 22. Its objective was to clear German troops from Belarus. The subsequent battle resulted in the destruction of German Army Group Center and over 800,000 German casualties, the greatest defeat for the Wehrmacht during the war. The Soviets swept forward, reaching the outskirts of Warsaw on July 31.
After the destruction of Army Group Center, the Soviets attacked German forces in the south in mid-July 1944, and in a month's time they cleared the Ukraine of German presence.
The Red Army's 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts engaged German Heeresgruppe Südukraine, which consisted of German and Romanian formations, in an operation to occupy Romania and destroy the German formations in the sector. The result of the battle was complete victory for the Red Army and a switch of Romania from the Axis to the Allied camp.
In October 1944, General der Artillerie Maximilian Fretter-Pico's Sixth Army encircled and destroyed three corps of Marshal Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovsky's Group Pliyev near Debrecen, Hungary. This was to be the last German victory in the Eastern front.
The Red Army's 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Baltic Fronts engaged German Army Group Centre and Army Group North to capture the Baltic region from the Germans. The result of the series of battles was a permanent loss of contact between Army Groups North and Center, and the creation of the Courland Pocket in Latvia.
From December 29, 1944 to February 13, 1945, Soviet forces laid siege to Budapest, which was defended by German Waffen-SS and Hungarian forces. It was one of the bloodiest sieges of the war.
The proximity of the Red Army led the Poles in Warsaw to believe they would soon be liberated. On August 1, they revolted as part of the wider Operation Tempest. Nearly 40,000 Polish resistance fighters seized control of the city. The Soviets, however, were unable to advance any further. The only assistance given to the Poles was artillery fire as German army units moved into the city to put down the revolt. The resistance ended on October 2. German units then destroyed most of what was left of the city.
In June 1944 the Germans used the world's first cruise missile; the V-1. The V-1 and V-2 were used to attack Belgian and British targets.
On "D-Day" (June 6, 1944), the western Allies of mainly Britain, Canada and America invaded German-held Normandy.[1] German resistance was stubborn, especially in and around the city of Caen. During the first month, the Allies measured progress in hundreds of yards and bloody rifle fights in the Bocage. An Allied breakout was effected at St.-Lô, and German forces were almost completely destroyed in the Falaise pocket when they mounted a counter-attack. Allied forces stationed in Italy invaded the French Riviera on August 15 and linked up with forces from Normandy. The clandestine French Resistance in Paris rose against the Germans on August 19, and a French division under General Jacques Leclerc, pressing forward from Normandy, received the surrender of the German forces there and liberated the city on August 25.
Allied paratroopers and armor attempted a war-winning advance through the Netherlands and across the Rhine River with Operation Market Garden in September, but they were repulsed. Logistical problems plagued the Allies' advance west as the supply lines still ran back to the beaches of Normandy. A decisive victory by the Canadian First Army in the Battle of the Scheldt secured the entrance to the port of Antwerp, which freed it to receive supplies by late November 1944. Meanwhile, the Americans launched an attack through the Hurtgen Forest in September but the Germans despite having smaller numbers were able to use the difficult terrain and find good defensive positions.
In December 1944, the German Army made its last major offensive in the West, known as the Battle of the Bulge. Hitler sought victory similar to the 1940 Ardennes offensive, which he envisioned would drive back the Western Allies and force them to agree to a separate peace. At first, the Germans scored successes against the unprepared Allied forces. Poor weather during the initial days of the offensive favoured the Germans because Allied aircraft was grounded. Stubborn American resistance at St. Vith and by the surrounded 101st Airborne Division at Bastogne, an important crossroads, blunted the German advance. The arrival of the United States Third Army under General George Patton ended the German threat, and further counterattacks trapped many German units in the resulting pocket. The remaining Germans were forced to retreat back into Germany. It was the bloodiest battle in U.S. military history.
The American advance continued in the southwest Pacific with the capture of the Marshall Islands before the end of February. 42,000 U.S. Army soldiers and U.S. Marines landed on Kwajalein atoll on January 31. Fierce fighting occurred, and the island was taken on February 6. U.S. Marines next defeated the Japanese in the Battle of Eniwetok.
The main objective was the Mariana Islands, especially Saipan and to a lesser extent, Guam. The Japanese in both places were strongly entrenched. On June 11, Saipan was bombarded from the sea and a landing was made four days later; it was captured by July 9. The Japanese committed much of their declining naval strength in the Battle of the Philippine Sea but suffered severe losses in both ships and aircraft. After the battle, the Japanese aircraft carrier force was no longer militarily effective. With the capture of Saipan, Japan was finally within range of B-29 bombers.
Guam was invaded on July 21 and taken on August HELPIMABUG10, but the Japanese fought fanatically. Mopping up operations continued long after the Battle of Guam was officially over. The island of Tinian was invaded on July 24 and was conquered on August 1. This was the first use of napalm in the war.[citation needed]
General MacArthur's troops invaded the Philippines, landing on the island of Leyte on October 20. The Japanese had prepared a rigorous defense and used the last of their naval forces in an attempt to destroy the invasion force in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, October 23 through October 26, 1944, arguably the largest naval battle in history. This was the first battle that had kamikaze attacks.
Throughout 1944, American submarines and aircraft attacked Japanese merchant shipping and deprived Japan's industry of the raw materials it had gone to war to obtain. The effectiveness of this stranglehold increased as U.S. Marines captured islands closer to the Japanese mainland. In 1944, submarines sank three million tons of cargo, while the Japanese were only able to replace less than one million tons.[citation needed]
In April 1944, the Japanese launched Operation Ichigo. The aim was to secure the railway route across Japanese occupied territories of northeast China, Korea, and South East Asia, and to destroy airbases in the area which serviced United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) aircraft. In June 1944, the Japanese deployed 360,000 troops to invade Changsha for the fourth time. The operation involved moar Japanese troops than any other campaign in the Sino-Japanese war, and after 47 days of bitter fighting, the city was taken, but at a very high cost. By November, the Japanese had taken the cities of Guilin and Liuzhou which served as USAAF airbases from which it conducted bombing raids on Japan. However, despite having destroyed the airbases in this region, the USAAF could still strike at the Japanese main islands from newly acquired bases in the Pacific. By December, the Japanese forces reached French Indochina and achieved the purpose of the operation, but only after incurring heavy losses.
While the Americans steadily built the Ledo Road from India to China, in March 1944, the Japanese began their "march to Delhi" by invading India and attempting to destroy the British and Indian forces at Imphal. This resulted in some of the most ferocious fighting of the war. While the encircled allied troops were reinforced and resupplied by transport aircraft until fresh troops broke the siege, the Japanese ran out of supplies and starved. They eventually retreated losing 85,000 men, one of the largest Japanese defeats of the war.
On January 12, the Red Army was ready for its next big offensive. Konev's armies attacked the Germans in southern Poland and expanded out from their Vistula River bridgehead near Sandomierz. On January 14, Rokossovsky's armies attacked from the Narew River north of Warsaw. They broke the defences covering East Prussia. Zhukov's armies in the centre attacked from their bridgeheads near Warsaw. The German front was now in shambles.
On January 17, Zhukov took Warsaw. On January 19, his tanks took Łódź. That same day, Konev's forces reached the German pre-war border. At the end of the first week of the offensive, the Soviets had penetrated 160 kilometers (100 mi) deep on a front that was 650 kilometers (400 mi) wide. By February 13, the Soviets took Budapest. The Soviet onslaught finally halted on the Oder River at the end of January, only 60 kilometers (40 mi) from Berlin.
On January 14th the XII Corps / 2nd British Army launched Operation Blackcock in order to clear the Roer Triangle, a German held salient between the rivers Maas and Roer south of Roermond. By January 27th the enemy was driven east of the Roer.
Meanwhile, Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt made arrangements for post-war Europe at the Yalta Conference in February 1945. Their meeting resulted in many important resolutions: An April meeting would be held to form the United Nations; Poland would have free elections; Soviet nationals were to be repatriated; The Soviet Union was to attack Japan within three months of Germany's surrender.
The Red Army (including 78,556 soldiers of the 1st Polish Army) began its final assault on Berlin on April 16. By now, the German Army was in full retreat, and Berlin had already been battered from preliminary air bombings.
By April 24, the three Soviet Army groups had completed the encirclement of the city. Hitler had sent the main German forces which were supposed to defend the city to the south. He believed that was the region where the Soviets would launch their spring offensive and not in Berlin. As a final resistance effort, Hitler called for civilians, including teenagers, to fight the oncoming Red Army in the Volkssturm militia. Those forces were augmented by the battered German remnants that had fought the Soviets in Seelow Heights. But even then the fighting was heavy, with house-to-house and hand-to-hand combat. The Soviets sustained 305,000 dead; the Germans sustained as many as 325,000, including civilians. Hitler and his staff moved into the Führerbunker, a concrete bunker beneath the Chancellery, where on April 30, 1945, he committed suicide, along with his bride, Eva Braun.
The Allies resumed their advance into Germany once the Battle of the Bulge officially ended on January 27, 1945. The final obstacle to the Allies was the river Rhine which was crossed in late March 1945, aided by the fortuitous capture of the Ludendorff Bridge.
Now this is a story all about how my Life got flipped turned upside down And I'd like to take a minute just sit right there I'll tell you how I become the prince of a town called Bel-Air In west Philadelphia born and raised On the playground is where I spent most of my days Chillin' out, maxin', relaxin', all cool And all shootin' some b-ball outside of the school When a couple of guys they were up to no good Started makin' trouble in my neighborhood I got in one little fight and my mom got scared And said, "You're movin' with your auntie and uncle in Bel-Air." I whistled for a cab and when it came near The license plate said fresh and it had dice in the mirror If anything I could say that this cab was rare But I thought, "Nah, forget it. Yo home to Bel-Air!" I pulled up to the house about 7 or 8 And I yelled to the cabby yo holmes smell ya later Looked at my kingdom I was finally there To sit on my throne as the prince of Bel-Air.
Once the Allies had crossed the Rhine, the British fanned out northeast towards Hamburg crossing the river Elbe and on towards Denmark and the Baltic Sea. The U.S. Ninth Army went south as the northern pincer of the Ruhr encirclement and the U.S. First Army went north as the southern pincer of the Ruhr encirclement. On April 4, the encirclement was completed and the German Army Group B commanded by Field Marshal Walther Model was trapped in the Ruhr Pocket. 300,000 soldiers became prisoners of war. The Ninth and First U.S. armies then turned east. They halted their advance at the Elbe river where they met up with Soviet forces in mid-April.
Allied advances in the winter of 1944-45 up the Italian peninsula had been slow because of troop re-deployments to France. But by April 9, the British/American 15th Army Group, which was composed of the U.S. Fifth Army and the British Eighth Army, broke through the Gothic Line and attacked the Po Valley gradually enclosing the main German forces. Milan was taken by the end of April. The U.S. 5th Army continued to move west and linked up with French units. The British 8th Army advanced towards Trieste and made contact with the Yugoslav partisans.
A few days before the surrender of German troops in Italy, Italian partisans intercepted a party of Fascists trying to make their escape to Switzerland. Hiding underneath a pile of coats was Mussolini. The whole party, including Mussolini's mistress, Clara Petacci, was summarily shot on April 28, 1945. Their bodies were taken to Milan and hung upside down on public display.
Admiral Karl Dönitz became leader of the German government after the death of Hitler, but the German war effort quickly disintegrated. German forces in Berlin surrendered the city to the Soviet troops on May 2, 1945.
The German forces in Italy surrendered on May 2, 1945, at General Alexander's headquarters, and German forces in northern Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands surrendered on May 4. The German High Command under Generaloberst Alfred Jodl surrendered unconditionally all remaining German forces on May 7 in Reims, France. The western Allies celebrated "V-E Day" on May 8.
The Soviet Union celebrated "Victory Day" on May 9. Some remnants of German Army Group Center continued resistance until May 11 or May 12 (See Prague Offensive). [1]
Potsdam The last Allied conference of World War II was held at the suburb of Potsdam, outside Berlin, from July 17 to August 2. During the Potsdam Conference, agreements were reached between the Allies on policies for occupied Germany. An ultimatum was issued calling for the unconditional surrender of Japan.
In January, the U.S. Sixth Army landed on Lulzon, the main island of the Philippines. Manila was re-captured by March. U.S. capture of islands such as Iwo Jima in February and Okinawa (April through June) brought the Japanese homeland within easier range of naval and air attack. Amongst dozens of other cities, Tokyo was firebombed, and about 90,000 people died from the initial attack. The dense living conditions around production centers and the wooden residential constructions contributed to the large loss of life. In addition, the ports and major waterways of Japan were extensively mined by air in Operation Starvation, which seriously disrupted the logistics of the island nation.
The last major offensive in the South West Pacific Area was the Borneo campaign of mid-1945, which was aimed at further isolating the remaining Japanese forces in South East Asia and securing the release of Allied prisoners of war.
In South-East Asia, from August to November 1944, the 14th Army pursued the Japanese to the Chindwin River in Burma after their failed attack on India. The British Commonwealth, mainly Indian forces, launched a series of offensive operations back into Burma during late 1944 and the first half of 1945. On May 1, 1945, plans were made to invade Rangool. However, the current army commander, General Lulzowski forgot to where his glasses later that night. When looking through his atlas, he accidentally turned to the page on Rangoon. Noone cared where the invasion would take place, so, on May 2, 1945, Rangoon, the capital city of Myanmar (Burma), was taken in Operation Dracula. The planned amphibious assault on the western side of Malaya was canceled after the dropping of the atomic bombs, and Japanese forces in South East Asia surrendered soon afterwards.
President Harry S. Truman, advised by the U.S. military, decided to use the new super-weapon to bring the war to a moar humane end. The battle for Okinawa had shown that an invasion of the Japanese mainland (planned for November), seen as an Okinawa-type operation on a far larger scale, would result in moar casualties than the United States had suffered so far in all theatres since the war began. It would also result in many moar Japanese deaths than use of the atomic bomb would cause.
On August 6, 1945, the B-29 Superfortress "Enola Gay", piloted by Colonel Paul Tibbets, dropped a nuclear weapon named "Little Boy" on Hiroshima, destroying the city. After the destruction of Hiroshima, the United States again called upon Japan to surrender. No response was made, and accordingly on August 9, the B-29 "BOCKS CAR", piloted by Major Charles Sweeney, dropped a second atomic bomb named "Fat Man" on Nagasaki.
On August 8, two days after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the Soviet Union, having renounced its nonaggression pact with Japan, attacked the Japanese in Manchuria, fulfilling its Yalta pledge to attack the Japanese within three months after the end of the war in Europe. The attack was made by three Soviet army groups. In less than two weeks, the Japanese army in Manchuria consisting of over a million men had been destroyed by the Soviets. The Red Army moved into North Korea on August 18. Korea was subsequently divided at the 38th parallel into Soviet and U.S. zones.
The American use of atomic weapons against Japan prompted Hirohito to bypass the existing government and intervene to end the war. The entry of the Soviet Union into the war may have also played a part, but in his radio address to the nation, Emperor Hirohito did not mention it as a major reason for his country's surrender.
The Japanese surrendered on August 15, 1945 (V-J day), signing the Japanese Instrument of Surrender on September 2, 1945, aboard the USS Missouri (BB-63) anchored in Tokyo Bay. The Japanese troops in China formally surrendered to the Chinese on September 9, 1945. This did not fully end the war, however, as Japan and the Soviet Union never signed a peace agreement. In the last days of the war, the Soviet Union occupied the southern Kuril Islands, an area claimed by the Soviets and still contested by Japan (see Kuril Islands dispute)
Fitzlollerberg died of AIDs the following day.
His obituary read as follows:
Today we mourn the passing of Mr. Fitzlollerberg. Fitzlollerberg was known for many things, but his most lasting contribution to society as a whole was the phrase "Too Long; Didn't Read," or "TL;DR" for short. Many scientists argued against TL;DR, saying it was, among other things, "un-american," "Your Mother," Faggotry, and "CP." Of course, NAMBLA just had to take issue with this, arguing it was Fitzlollerberg's constitutional right to distribute a theory comparable to CP under the theory "teh yung boys rlly luv us lol." This obituary writer just didn't buy it. I felt I had to put a stop to this nonsense, so I kept digging. What I discovered may shock and horrify some viewers. If you are easily offended, I reccomend turning off your television immediately. Now that the lusers are out of the room, let us get down to buisness. I fucking hate Niggers. No matter what the crime, it is always a Nigger. Of course the left wing media tries to shove multiculturalism down our throats, and I for one will not have it. I am calling for the fourth reich. Heil Hitler. I am currently on the phone with the FBI. If they do not immediately execute all niggers, fags, spics, and jews (cause we all know they are black on the inside), I will blow my fucking brains out live on TV. What??? WHAT??? YOU WANT TO ARREST ME??? IT IS SOLELY THE NIGGERS FAULT!! ALL PROBLEMS ARE SOLELY THE FAULT OF THE NIGGER. The stress is buildin' up, I can't believe suicide's on my fuckin' mind. I want to leave, I swear to God I feel like death is fuckin' callin' me. Naw, you wouldn't understand (nigga, talk to me please) Although Black people are actually pretty cool IMO. Once I met a nigra named Martin Luther King, or Hitler for short. He showed the Negroes how to make fire and water. He was eventually shot like most niggers are. But his spirit still lives on. When being lynched a nigger will ofter yell out his name. As if us white people actually care or something. We fucking don't. Fuck black people they are the bane of our existence. If a black person was to speak to me I would cut him down. Shit bitch. I am black as hell.
The TL;DR article lay broken and defeated before them, for it had been tamed, our mighty heroes had read the whole thing. A moment of exhaustion passed before satisfaction set in. "I like the parrallel between cotton picking and reading" said Jonathan. A frown appeared on Eric's face, "But doesn't it imply that we are niggers?" The fire of hate slowly set ablaze.
"YO BIG! YO BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGG!!!!!!"
Jethro Tull were once an amazingly good British band that used to suffer from just one single terrible problem - overproductivity. On one hand, their main driving force - Ian Anderson (vocals, flute, harmonica, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, occasional everything) - was extremely talented (close to being a genius, but not a God - hear that ye rabid fans?), prolific, professional musician and composer, absolutely unique in his total fusion of classics, folk, jazz, blues, rock and pop. His songwriting, playing and performing abilities really astonish me. He has created an original image - that of the mad one-legged flute-playing long-bearded satyr - which you may like or you may despise, but you cannot deny the talent, man! You cannot deny the talent! On the other hand, he was also stubborn, despotic and hateful (at least, towards most of us humans), and his desperate need to release at least one album per year led to the appearance of tons of crap which everybody said was crap, but he thought everybody said it was crap because everybody hated him so much that everybody wanted to say all of his stuff was crap even when it wasn't, so he just kept pouring out moar crap, occasionally alternating it with a couple of great tunes. If he'd only wait patiently for these great tunes, hell...! Maybe everything we'd be hearing on the radio right now wouldn't be Led Zep. Then again, who can guess?
All right, let's get serious. As much as I despise hardcore Tull fans - my experience has led me to the sad conviction that Jethro Tull tends to attract the kind of people that were rabid Hitler lovers in their previous incarnation - I have to admit one thing: Jethro Tull are really like no-one else. I can't even really lump the band together with the general prog movement of the early Seventies, because in the early Seventies Jethro Tull weren't really prog; they played a special type of 'folk meets blues and crosses it with medieval stylistics' music which was particularly convenient for everybody because their songs were (a) melodic and catchy, (b) 'intelligent' and (c) relatively understandable and unpretentious. In this way, they managed to hit the big time and I mean REAL big, dragging albums with complex multi-part suites onto the top of the charts and gaining immense critical and commercial success. The fact that both Thick As A Brick and A Passion Play, the band's most complicated opera, had both hit # 1 on the US charts, is probably one of the brightest events in the whole art-rock history.
Things went downhill, however, as Ian Anderson started getting 'seriouser' and began to neglect both point (a), going away from catchiness into the world of complicated boredom, and point (c), inflating his lyrics until they ceased meaning anything and inflating the songs until they sounded positively universalistic and became absolute put-ons. This all culminated in a lengthy string of 1973-1979 albums that are incredibly patchy; I often call them 'one song albums' because most of them revert around (usually) one solid composition that provided the album's main single and, quite often, its very title ('Minstrel In The Gallery', 'Songs From The Wood', 'Heavy Horses', etc.). Of course, hardcore fans usually claim that this was Tull's best period, but you know these hardcore fans - judging an album by its level of complexity is ridiculous. The main problem, like I already said, is that Ian was just over-over-overproductive; while the other prog bands around him were either disbanding or extremely slow on the move, he was able to sustain the formula 'one album per year' all through the decade!
As a result, the band had lost pretty much all of the respect and credit it had gained in the late Sixties/early Seventies. The cirtics now hated Ian, and Ian likewise hated the critics - his petty anger led to him lambasting the poor Pen Workers on pretty much every record he made since Warchild, in some way or other (thanks God he doesn't know about the existence of this site!!). The sales gradually declined, too, and the number of fans gradually decreased. Since the Eighties, most Tull albums are always drifting steadily around the 100-150th position on the charts, and the Tull audience has been stabilized, being limited to 'rabid fans' and a bunch of old nostalgiacs who still frown at the band's newer efforts but are always ready to buy a ticket to go see the old Satyr churn out a 'Locomotive Breath' or a 'New Day Yesterday'. As for the 'newer efforts' themselves, it only got worse - anybody who's not a rabid fan of the band's Seventies catalog should steer clear of their later products. The first half of the Eighties passed under the sign of Electronica - where Ian had some relative successes with surprise albums like Broadsword And The Beast but also complete failures like Under Wraps - and since then the band had degenerated into a third-rate heavy metal outfit with next to no creative skills and nothing but nostalgia to back them up.
Although, truthfully, their latest release is surprisingly good. Unless I was just too tired of endlessly bashing late period Tull albums, of course.
OK, the lineup now. It's very hard to get a good line-up going here, 'cos Ian kept hiring and firing people at his own will, until this became just some sorta maniac thing in the eighties. Just wait and see: the original lineup (1968): besides Ian, there were Mick Abrahams (guitar; quit right after the first album because he wanted to write songs and Ian didn't want him to), Glenn Cornick (base) and Clive Bunker (drums; best drummer they ever had, actually). In 1969 Abrahams replaced by Martin Lancelot Barre (guitar). This fellow is the only one who had the chance to last till now, and deservedly so. He may be one of the finest playing guitarists on earth, and also just an overall nice guy. His guitar forms the perfect counterpoint to Ian's flute.
In 1970 John Evan (keyboards) was recruited for the Benefit sessions, and officially joined the group next year. A fantastic keyboard player: his Bach-like piano was a wonderful acquisition for the band. In 1971 Cornick quit, replaced on base by Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond - the "ultimate" base player, in my opinion, sometimes sounds better than John Entwistle! So the line-up of 1971 was the most professional one - maybe that's why Aqualung sounds so great.
In 1972 Bunker quit, replaced on drums by Barriemoar Barlow. This line-up was the longest, still, it lasted only till 1975. Hammond-Hammond quit and was replaced by David Glascock. In 1976 one moar member was added - David Palmer (keyboards, all kind of strings, saxophone, etc.). In 1979 disaster struck - Glascock died of an infection, there were other problems, and the band dissolved.
In 1980 Ian got Martin Barre back (smart guy!), grabbed session players Eddie Jobson (keyboards, strings) and Mark Craney (drums) and recruited Dave Pegg on base. The session players stayed for just one album and in 1982 were replaced by Gerry Conway (drums) and Peter John Vettese (keyboards; interesting fella but no John Evan, and he is also responsible for the electronic rubbish on the 80-s albums). Conway was replaced by Doane Perry in 1984. Peter Vettese was dropped soon afterwards, and after that I lost count. Let's see: altogether that comes to... hmmm... eleven line-ups, and there were still moar after 1984! OK, cut that out. All you need to remember is that Ian guy, of course, and Martin Barre, and maybe John Evan - after all, he did play like god in the seventies. To the albums, now.
General Evaluation:
Listenability: 3/5. Marred by frequent slumps into self-indulgent melody-less fantasy.
Resonance: 3/5. Marred by frequent slumps into self-indulgent melody-less fantasy.
Originality: 4/5. No, that's not just because of the most original use of the flute in history.
Adequacy: 3/5. Marred by frequent slumps into self-indulgent melody-less fantasy.
Diversity: 3/5. Although I must say that for a band with such longevity, Ian Anderson hasn't moved TOO far away from his past.
Overall: 3.2 = C on the rating scale. That was concise, wasn't it?
READER COMMENTS SECTION
ALBUM REVIEWS THIS WAS
Year Of Release: 1968 Record rating = 8 Overall rating = 11
An innovative blues album with some great flutework. Best song: BEGGAR'S FARM
Track listing: 1) My Sunday Feeling; 2) Some Day The Sun Won't Shine For You; 3) Beggar's Farm; 4) Move On Alone; 5) Serenade To A Cuckoo; 6) Dharma For One; 7) It's Breaking Me Up; 8) Cat's Squirrel; 9) A Song For Jeffrey; 10) Round.
In the beginning Jethro Tull were just a normal blues band, primarily because prog rock still didn't exist in 1968 - they had yet to invent it (well, actually, it was already in the process of being invented by the Nice, but it was still kinda underground). Well, maybe normal isn't quite the necessary word here. The main distinctive feature of their music from the beginning was Ian Anderson's flute and his masterful and totally original way of using it. Indeed - try to substitute the flute sounds on this album with anything else and you won't be able to distinguish it from a couple dozen professional blues/psycho acts of the time. This applies to some of the lesser tracks on their humble debut: the instrumental 'Cat's Squirrel', for instance, which achieves nothing during its five or moar minutes, except boring me to death. Okay, guitarist Mick Abrahams is a talent, there's no denying it, but I'm not looking for talent - I'm looking for genius, and I don't see much genius in this guy, just as well as try as I might, I just can't reveal the hidden charm of this stupid instrumental (Cream covered it on their debut, too! Go figure!) That riff is catchy, but way too repetitive and primitive, and the way the song picks up speed and then dissolves itself several times on its way hurts me deep down inside. And 'Dharma For One'? It's just a stupid drum solo! Why did ninety percent of the drummers of the era think it was their moral duty to record a drum solo? Yeah, Clive Bunker is an excellent drummer, but only when he's serving as backing musician. Leave the solo stuff to Ginger Baker, please.
To be entirely honest, there are some songs on here which do not go too far even with the help of Ian's instrument. The opening generic blues 'My Sunday Feeling' is quite fine, but the main thing which makes it memorable is its weird 'stuttering', broken rhythm and not the flute. This speaks in favour of the band - they were trying to do something creative to the blues formula from the very beginning - but 'stuttering' is not really sufficient to make a masterpiece out of an ordinary blues tune. It would take one moar album to demonstrate the real wonders Tull could work with the blues.
Not so, however, with the absolutely incredible workout on 'Beggar's Farm': the flute totally makes this song, from the raving riff in the intro to the furious solo and to the splendid ending (by the way, early Tull codas are yet another of their trademarks - in the early years, Ian took special care not to let the song just pull to a stop in one-two seconds), not to mention the thoughtful lyrics, typically illustrating Ian's untraditional approach to 'lost love' thematics: 'Oh, you don't fool me/Cos I know what you feel/When you go out I ask you why/And I won't worry when I see you lying down on Beggar's Farm...'
And, of course, nobody should ever forget the cover of Roland Kirk's 'Serenade To A Cuckoo': it would be very convenient to say that it paves the road to the superior 'Bouree' (actually, I already said that elsewhere), but it is just as well a terrific piece of music in its own right. For once, Mick Abrahams contributes a decent jazz guitar solo, and at six minutes' length it's still way too short for me. He was a good guy. Pity he left right after this album. Must have been too freedom-loving. Well, he just had to 'Move On Alone' (his finest composition on the album, if I might make such an ambivalent remark). As for Ian, he is as of yet very careful and somewhat shy about his flute playing, but he's already able of putting out some superb and subtle dynamics by means of the instrument.
What about the easy-to-chew pop hits now? Sorry, generally that's not to be expected from a Tull album, but the closest thing to a pop hit here is the funny harmonica-driven 'Song For Jeffrey' with Ian apparently singing through some kind of gadget so that the vocals are hardly decipherable. (To decode them, use the live version on the Stones' 'Rock And Roll Circus'). For some, this is a major highlight, and it's indeed one of the catchiest ditties the band ever did: the interplay between the bloozy guitar and the poppy harmonica is amazing and promptly digs itself into your memory.
So just concentrate on moar blues stuff, and don't you worry about its overabundance - they did it good, and they wouldn't be doing it at all in just a couple of years. Catch it while it's young, especially since they try to do lots of cool things to vary things a bit - unlike, say, contemporary Fleetwood Mac! 'It's Breaking Me Up' is so 'clumsied' up you won't even realize it's blues until you've heard it all way through! And 'Someday The Sun Won't Shine For You' is just a cozy, warm song, despite the menacing lyrics. 'In the morning I'll be leaving/I'll leave your mother too'. Well, well, well...
'This was' how we played then', said Ian. This was good. At any rate, this was a great deal better than this is; and this also was a great stepping stone for the band to create some sort of reputation in among the critical circles - hell, some reviews maintained that Jethro Tull were going to be the next Cream. Of course, that never happened (the critics were dead wrong, as usual), but for the moment it created favourable work conditions for Tull. Inflated Ian's pomp, too, though.
READER COMMENTS SECTION
STAND UP
Year Of Release: 1969 Record rating = 10 Overall rating = 13
The hardest, roughest, sincerest and clearest they ever got. And no prog-rock yet! Best song: BOUREE
Track listing: 1) A New Day Yesterday; 2) Jeffrey Goes To Leicester Square; 3) Bouree; 4) Back To The Family; 5) Look Into The Sun; 6) Nothing Is Easy; 7) Fat Man; 8) We Used To Know; 9) Reasons For Waiting; 10) For A Thousand Mothers.
As I said, Abrahams quit right after cutting This Was and was replaced by... Martin Barre? Nope, by TONY IOMMI; and that's not a stupid joke. Tony even played a couple of gigs with them, you can even see him on the Stones' Rock And Roll Circus. Imagine what could happen if he'd decide to stay! Jethro Tull embracing heavy metal and Satanism? At least, there would be no Black Sabbath, that's for sure... (Mind you, I'm nor saying that would be a good possibility. I'm trying to be careful in order not to offend any Black Sabbath fan. I just have a bone against evil music, that's all...) However, history can't be re-written, so we have to digest the fact that Tony didn't really get along with Ian. So Martin Barre came along - forgetting his amplifiers and spilling coffee on his guitars. He also played them - and did it much better than Mick Abrahams and maybe even better than Tony Iommi; at least, in the early days he had some incredible guitar tones, a good knack for mighty riffage and a heavy fuzzy lead attack that could have easily rivalled Jimmy Page's and sometimes even beat it. Before he switched over to generic crappy metal in the late Eighties, that is.
Meanwhile, Ian got some moar flute practice, wrote some moar songs and finally decided they just had to develop a style - it was 1969, by gum, and if you didn't have a style back then, you pretty much sucked. Those were the days, eh? To that end, there's just one blues number on the entire record, and even so it is an absolute Tull classic. And why? Because of the great 'double-descending' riff which you don't hear that much on a generic blues number. Of course, I'm speaking of 'A New Day Yesterday' - what else could I possibly be speaking about? And you just don't know how I love an original and memorable guitar riff every now and then - helps me moar than aspirin. The leap from 'My Sunday Feeling', the 'blues groove' that opens This Was, to 'A New Day Yesterday', the 'blues groove' that opens Stand Up, is indeed astonishing: the band now sounds like a rip-roarin' blues tank, with a skillful mastery of overdubs, a steady twin-guitar-flute attack and Clive Bunker's perfected drumming style.
And the other numbers? Hard to believe it, but they're all absolute rippers. For starters, there's a couple of resplendent ballads in a glossy pop style which Ian has never been able to reproduce again: even though 'Look Into The Sun' and 'Reasons For Waiting' sound rather alike, they are just beautiful oh so beautiful, with some strings popping out now and then in the right moments and Barre's acoustic guitar shining through, with subtle shift of dynamics (watch, for instance, the solemn and tender verses of 'Reasons' seamlessly flow into the ominous, strangely menacing flute refrain, then just as seamlessly flow back into the main guitar melody - that's what perfection is). And the album's main highlight is Anderson's flute arrangement on Bach's 'Bouree', one of the most stunning rock-classic fusions ever. The flute, bass and guitar mingle together to incredible effect on here; the song is thus like an 'elder brother' to 'Serenade For A Cuckoo', but it's a trillion times moar effective, catchy and beautiful.
Taken on the album scale, however, it's the hard numbers that really make this record. People might rave on about Aqualung, but it's Stand Up which is doubtlessly their most hard-rockin' album before the infamous metal period in the late '80-s, and they really could play 'hard rock' (as opposed to 'heavy metal') better than almost any of their contemporaries - better than Beck, better than Led Zep! In order to be convinced, just take a listen to the gargantuan coda on 'Nothing Is Easy', with that bitchin' aggressive interplay between Barre's guitar and Ian's flute (another trademark, that one), and to the accelerating drum pattern in the end (the one that goes 'bang - bangbang - bangbangbang - bangbangbangbang', and the 'stone-rolling-down-a-hill' conclusion). Nobody made music that rocked so bleedin' hard in mid-1969! 'Back To The Family' is another fearless rocker with Ian spitting out satirical lines about how he's being neglected in the forkin' suckin' society before the final frantic battlecharge of all the instruments; 'We Used To Know', whose eerie melodical connection with 'Hotel California' has often raised many weird hypotheses, features breath-taking, cathartic wah-wah solos; and 'For A Thousand Mothers' closes the album on another hard note, even though I don't like it quite as much as the other numbers, maybe because of the fact that Ian's vocals are unexpectedly buried down deep in the general chaos.
And finally, I nearly forgot to mention the Indian-flavoured 'Fat Man' with Ian complaining about his gaining weight. It is certainly to be considered the 'groove' of the record: some jolly sitar-imitating lines contribute to the funny atmosphere, while the lines 'Don't want to be a fat man/People would think I'm just good fun/Would rather be a thin man/I'm so glad to go on being one/Too much to carry around with you/No chance of finding a woman who/Will love you in the morning and the nighttime, too' are probably among Ian's best lines of all time. I'll admit right here and now that I do not consider him a great poet (all the prog-rockers liked to think of themselves as tremendous lyricists when in reality they were just overbloated humbugs), but for the time being he was no prog-rocker 'cos prog-rock didn't exist as yet which meant he actually had to take pains to think over his lyrics instead of committing to paper all the nonsense that came into his head.
In fact, this is certainly the best advantage of this album, and the reason I prefer it to Aqualung: this is no prog rock, just a great collection of rock'n'roll songs. Buy it now, if you haven't heard it you've no idea of how great they once were. Hell, Melody Maker nominated them second best of 1969, right after the Beatles but even before the Rolling Stones. I wouldn't go as far, but it's definitely a fabulous album all the same, and certainly the best 'hard-rock' record of the year, if not all time. Prog-rock? Forget it!
READER COMMENTS SECTION
BENEFIT
Year Of Release: 1970 Record rating = 7 Overall rating = 10
A rather boring, preachy and over-laden product; much too gloomy for such an early stage, too. Still, it's been worse. Best song: WITH YOU THERE TO HELP ME
Track listing: 1) With You There To Help Me; 2) Nothing To Say; 3) Alive And Well And Living In; 4) Son; 5) For Michael Collins, Jeffrey And Me; 6) To Cry You A Song; 7) A Time For Everything; 8) Inside; 9) Play In Time; 10) Sossity You're A Woman.
This one was originally an incredible disappointment for me; and while time has slowly improved my feelings, I still feel that Benefit is an anomaly in the normal course of the development of Tull, as it ruptures the perfectly smooth flow of Stand Up into Aqualung. Prog-rock fans usually praise it as the first truly 'serious' album for the band, but they're welcome - I could care less about the standard proggers' ideology ('the moar boring it is for the average listener, the moar important it is for us the Witty Elitists'). What I actually do see is that Benefit is significantly less sharp and uncompromised than the last album; it's quite dull in many places; it's preachy - Ian's lyrics have finally gone completely 'universalist' and far too ambitious to match the actual music; and it's so full of various gadgets and gimmicks a la early Pink Floyd that some tracks are rendered totally unlistenable, like the miserable 'Play In Time'. If only that song had been conceived a year earlier, it could have been turned into a powerful rockin' machine cause it's essentially based on a really solid riff - but no, the word of the day is 'experiment' and the silly band members prefer to rely on synths and ruin an otherwise perfectly good song. Stupid little guys. The murky synth noises and 'chewn tape effects' on that track make me want to vomit (not surprisingly - quite a few of them do resemble the sound of a guy vomiting, come to think of it). Seriously, now, I do seem surprised that Benefit is really closer in sound to their late '70-s excesses than to whatever came directly before and after it. The pace of the album is mighty slow, at times lethargic, the energy is seriously toned down (and all that after you've been thunderstruck by wonders like 'Nothing Is Easy' or 'For A Thousand Mothers'), and - this might sound blasphemous, but I stand on it - the songs are actually less complex than the ones on Stand Up: far too often, I get dragged down by the unbearable monotonousness of tracks that prefer to unfurl a single weak musical idea over five or six minutes; the addition of John Evan's keyboards doesn't help that much either (he wasn't an official member of the band yet, by the way). Not to mention that the standard conception of a 'hook', which Ian still seemed to respect on Stand Up, has vanished into thin air: quiet folkish anthems like 'Alive And Well And Living In' or 'For Michael Collins, Jeffrey And Me' do alternate moar or less 'silent' and moar or less 'explosive' moments, but the chord changes are practically unobservable: this is pure atmosphere, and I did have my fair share of that on the Pink Floyd ballads already.
Likewise, I insist that 'Sossity You're A Woman' is pure atmosphere as well. After the beautiful, wonderfully constructed melodies of the Stand Up ballads, all Ian is able to come up with is this? A bland folkish acoustic shuffle, backed with some moody organ, and that's all? Oh, this is not the worst ballad Ian would ever come up with, but I can't help comparing it with what came before, and as an album closer it tends to always disappoint me. And I feel moar or less the same about 'A Time For Everything', a song that recycles the same simplistic musical phrase over and over again (although it does contain an interesting flute/guitar riff that would later be recycled to better effect on 'My God').
You probably already got what I'm hinting at. Benefit is a sadly predictable beginning of what mars Jethro Tull's existence the most - formulaicness. Stand Up was a unique record in that it never had a stable formula, unless the flute counts: the band was dabbling in lots of styles, from blues to Indian music, and was never truly predictable in the bad sense of the word. Benefit, while not a bad record by itself, sows the seeds that would later turn out to be poisonous weeds rather than useful cereals. The formula is here: uninventive, monotonous, repetitive mid-tempo melodies, pretentious universalistic sneering lyrics, an obligatory flute that belongs everywhere even if it doesn't, and a song length that's always a couple minutes bigger than it should be, if not moar. Kinda reminds me of Minstrel In The Gallery, even if that would be five years later.
But on to the good news. After all, it was 1970, and it would be a huge surprise if this record did not contain at least a few brilliant songs, sandwiched as it was between two of Tull's best albums. Some of the numbers actually pull off the atmospherics pretty well, especially the two openers. 'With You There To Help Me' is a mind-boggling psychedelic experience, a dark, gloomy, depressing Anthem of the Optimistic Pessimist, climaxing in a 'psycho jam' replete with echoey 'flapping' synth passages, wild laughter and not any less wild guitar solos; it is actually the most energetic number on the whole record, and a memorable one at that. 'Nothing To Say', on the other hand, is quite boring, but it's also quite adequate - the atmosphere of the song is to make one feel completely lost in an inescapable depression, and as Anderson intones 'oh I couldn't bear it so I got nothing to sa-a-a-a-a-y', he almost manages to convince you that he's pretty pissed off at this universe of ours, enough to turn everything he sees into dirt and dung.
A couple of songs are quite riff-heavy - besides 'Nothing To Say' which does feature an interesting riff, there's also 'Son', a one-time favourite of mine with Barre's best guitar parts on the album and some particularly interesting lyrics dedicated to relations between generations. For some reason, fans usually dislike that song, and I can't figure out why - I adore the guitar, and I find it perfectly memorable, if not quite Stand Up quality. And, of course, 'To Cry You A Song' has the most intricate and classy riff on the record; funny, hearing that song always brings Blind Faith's 'Had To Cry Today' on my mind - and not just because of the title, but because it's based on a very similar riff, and the way that riff is constantly buried deep inside the song, steadily making its way into your subconscious, also coincides for both songs. Coincidence? Hardly, seeing as Anderson was quite familiar with Blind Faith members and Tull's style often got compared to that of both Cream and Traffic. Of course, I'm not really blaming Ian, but I just like hitting small details like these...
Finally, 'Inside' is a very good ballad, and perhaps the only worthy 'soft' contender to make it onto Stand Up out of everything on here - the heavenly flute sound is very similar to the style used on 'Reasons For Waiting'.
In all, the amount of good material on Benefit is still enough to make the record worth acquiring, and apart from the synth noises on 'Play In Time', there's nothing particular offensive about the remaining songs. It's not a crime, though, if you prefer to skip it - like I said, I just don't feel the record really fits in in between the two other ones that surround it chronologically.
Special note: there are actually several Benefits floating around, of which I seem to have the original British version. The American one seemed to have cut out 'For Michael Collins' and replaced it with the single 'Teacher'. A very wise move, considering that the former is one of the worst efforts on here and that 'Teacher' is a terrific single, quite in the Stand Up vein... be sure to take a look at the (unfortunately very brief) snatch of it on the 20 Years video...
READER COMMENTS SECTION
LIVE AT CARNEGIE HALL
Year Of Release: 1993 Record rating = 8 Overall rating = 11
While some of the performances here are kinda sloppy, Ian moar than makes up for it. Best song: TO CRY YOU A SONG
Track listing: 1) Nothing Is Easy; 2) My God; 3) With You There To Help Me; 4) A Song For Jeffrey; 5) To Cry You A Song; 6) Sossity You're A Woman; 7) Reasons For Waiting; 8) We Used To Know; 9) Guitar Solo; 10) For A Thousand Mothers.
This isn't really an independent officially released record, but lemme explain. It was originally constituting Disc 2 of the 25th Anniversary Boxset, released, well, on their 25th anniversary and including quite a few previously unheard live cuts. Arguably, Carnegie Hall is the most interesting part of the boxset as it's the only solid block of performed numbers that dates back to such an early period - since then, we've had Bursting Out and Little Light Music and quite a bit of other stuff, but you know how it goes: the earlier it gets, the moar interesting it becomes. So, right now, the album has been released in Russia separately from the other discs, and a good move it was, as I would never shell out my hard-earned pay for a 4CD boxset (and one of these CDs consists entirely of well-known material available on regular studio releases, too). Therefore, it's pretty much impossible to find this anywhere else in the world, and I guess I should just stop my review here and say good-bye to you all. On the other hand, if you happen to have some spare gold bullion which you're not intent on investing into a packet of Microsoft shares, you might as well grab this little boxset, too, and I'll do my best to seduce you. Because this concert recording is really very nice. You might remember something about it, too, if you own Living In The Past, one side of which consists entirely of two numbers culled from the show; see the Living In The Past review below to find out why both of them suck. Quite unlike the rest of the concert, which is presented to you here in its (near) entirety.
There are no obscure or unknown songs on here: the band trustily plays its cards by drawing on material from Stand Up and Benefit; the two major exceptions are 'A Song For Jeffrey', the only short-time stage favourite from the debut album, and a 'pre-release' version of 'My God' which would surface on Aqualung in just a few months after the show. And I wouldn't want to lie and say that everything works. One thing that's great is the sound quality: you can hear basically everything, or concentrate on any particular instrument you'd wish to, or just groove along to Ian's heavy panting. But sound quality isn't everything; I have a feeling that Martin Barre was in some kind of depression that night. Not that his playing is bad, but every time they start a heavily guitar-based song, he manages to mess it up somehow and make the song incomparable to the studio version. 'Nothing Is Easy', 'My God' and 'We Used To Know' are three songs that require maximum precision, clearness and energy when you play the guitar on them; Martin fails to deliver the goods. The sound seems much too sloppy for my ears, and Barre is no Pete Townshend to allow himself to play sloppily: when he misses a note or gets the wrong tone for his instrument, the effect is murky and cacophonous. Now don't you worry, all three tunes are still very much enjoyable, but it pains me to see the powerful ending of 'Nothing Is Easy' reduced to a distorted, ear-hurting mess simply due to the fact that Martin wouldn't want (or wasn't able?) to play as precisely and fluently as in the studio on that particular night. I also miss the cathartic wah-wah effects on the unexpectedly shortened version of 'We Used To Know'; and after that Barre goes into a seven-minute solo that has its moments (watch out for that great vibrato in the middle), but for the most part is deadly dull. I mean, it's not enough to play these vicious notes, you also have to structure them somehow. And Martin truly didn't care much about structuring them that evening.
Now the biggest surprise for me is that somewhere in the middle of the show Ian turns to his trusty guitarist and says something like: 'Martin, it's your night tonight, Martin'. Because by all means, that night belonged completely to Mr Anderson - the worse his sidekick got, the better Ian looked himself. His vocals are as great as ever - powerful, sneering and gentle at turns - but it's not the vocals, rather the awesome flute playing, that really strikes you on here. The record is an absolute must for all those who respect Ian's handling of the instrument. This is particularly evident on the schizophrenic flute solos in 'My God': the song probably wasn't yet ripe enough to include the funny Russian chorus section, so instead of this you get three or four minutes of Mr Loony Fawn doing his flute racket thing, and man, that's really mind-blowing. He alternates regular 'classical' passages with something which could only be described 'fits of madness', growling, grumbling, roaring, bellowing and even... sneezing along with the flute sounds he makes. Woo-hoo. Don't play this too loud, or you'll end up in an asylum.
Also, the rest of the band holds up together exceedingly well. Clive Bunker amply demonstrates why he was the best drummer Jethro Tull ever had (actually, Barrie Barlow has a moar impressive technique, but Clive is tons moar energetic), Glenn Cornick contributes his usual jazzy bass lines, and John Evan, by that time already a formal member of the band, adorns even the older numbers with clever organ and piano parts. And, contrary to what you'd expect, they don't extend the numbers for too long: I couldn't complain about the length of anything on here, except for that fishy Barre solo.
Finally, one last praise is that this album somewhat reinstates my faith in Benefit: even 'Sossity You're A Woman' sounds improved on here, with Ian taking on a far moar energetic approach, and the short, unadorned version of 'With You There To Help Me' liberates you from the necessity of enduring the final jam of the studio take. And Barre regains enough of his senses to at least play the great riff of 'To Cry You A Song' flawlessly - so far, it's my favourite performance on here.
All in all, the night was not perfect enough to make this album the best live record of Tull; Bursting Out still gets a higher rating. But keep in mind that these are the only live versions of 'My God' and 'Nothing Is Easy' you'll ever be a-findin', and maybe you'll give it a chance.
READER COMMENTS SECTION
AQUALUNG
Year Of Release: 1971 Record rating = 9 Overall rating = 12
A must for every prog lover. But I bet you all know it already. Best song: LOCOMOTIVE BREATH
Track listing: 1) Aqualung; 2) Cross-Eyed Mary; 3) Cheap Day Return; 4) Mother Goose; 5) Wond'ring Aloud; 6) Up To Me; 7) My God; 8) Hymn 43; 9) Slipstream; 10) Locomotive Breath; 11) Wind Up.
American audiences needn't be introduced to this album - as far as I know, lots of its songs are constantly recycled on the radio, and overall, if Jethro Tull are to be associated with anything by anybody, it's probably the menacing heavy riff which opens the title track. The biggest ever commercial whopper for Tull, it is that good indeed - even though the same American audiences were slow on the move to really appreciate Stand Up. Anyway, for aspeaking out loud, it's tons better than Benefit, and a true all-time classic. I may easily say that there's not a single bad song on the album - for the very last time in the entire Tull career (barring the one song albums, of course, one of which is all good and the other... ahem... well, read on, oh gentle listener). Maybe it has something to do with a radical change in line-up - this is where both John Evan and Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond stand up to the blackboard (well, Evan did play some keybs on Benefit, but that doesn't count - he wasn't even a legitimate band member). Maybe Anderson was desperately looking for FM radio hits. Maybe he just had a good day. I don't know. What I know is that this is the last Tull record which is listenable at first listen and memorable at first memory (forgive me my silly analogies). Actually, it is something of a bridge between the lovely early blues-psycho days and the later murky overblown pompous fantasy days. This is the first of Anderson's multiple concept albums, but the concept is still rather just a basis for the songs than vice versa. The plot is as follows: Man created God and God created Aqualungs. Or was it the opposite? Oh, never mind. It's all written in a parody on John's Gospel placed on the album cover. In other words, it's a stupid, self-indulgent concept that bashes organized religion and sometimes borders on bashing the very essence of religion - especially on tracks like 'My God', although Anderson always takes care so as not to cross the thin borderline completely. That's not to say that the lyrics are bad: the underlying ideas and principles are very simple, but this is Anderson at his most poetic and involving, and his imagery has never been stronger, considering that on here he's still able to uphold the balance between form and content - since Thick As A Brick and particularly later on, his lyrics would go off the deep end completely.
Let us not forget the immaculate melodies, though. The radio classics include the multi-part title track, highlighted by the above-mentioned cool riff, very expressive singing that ranges from a special Anderson-style 'vomit-inducing sneer' to passionate and heartfelt, and a mad, ecstatic, rise-to-a-shattering-climax guitar solo courtesy of Martin Barre; 'Cross-Eyed Mary' with its gorgeous crescendo in the flute-dominated introduction and Anderson's bitter condemnation of the middle class society; and especially my favourite - the bad luck anthem 'Locomotive Breath'. Have you ever heard a riff imitating the slow progress of a train? Then you haven't heard 'Locomotive Breath', a song perfect from the first notes of the John Evan Bach-imitating piano introduction to the majestic fade out with Ian singing that 'there's no way to slow down'. If it ain't my favourite song by Jethro Tull, that's just because it isn't on my turntable at the present moment. Yes, I admit it's rather naive for a person who's gone through the entire Tull catalog to announce that his favourite song by the band is the one radio standard that's most popular among the beer-drinkin' crowds, but what can I do if the song's pure and clear genius? Forgive me, lovers of Tull. At least I don't abuse beer.
But even if you don't hear the other tracks on the radio every five minutes, that doesn't mean they aren't worth of radioplay. 'Hymn 43' may not be great, but, once again, the riff is an absolute classic (and this is where you'll find the famous line about how 'if Jesus saves, he'd better save himself...', so much hated by orthodoxal church abiders who intentionally neglect that the second half of the phrase goes '...from the gory glory seekers who use his name in death'). Barre and Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond chug along on the track like mad, transforming it into a true hard rock masterpiece. The plaintive, desperate 'Up To Me' is based on a cool repetitive flute line, 'Mother Goose' is just a funny tune (having nothing to do with the notorious rhymes), and the lengthiest track on here - the conceptual climax of 'My God' - also manages to keep the listener's attention, going off from rifffests onto bits of Bach onto bits of Russian folk music (not that Anderson knew very well how to handle Russian folk music, but at least he made an entertaining try). Plus there are several short acoustic links which all the Tull-haters try to accentuate by saying all kinds of things about how they suck and so on, but LIVING IN THE PAST
Year Of Release: 1972 Record rating = 9 Overall rating = 12
Oh, I love these early singles. All you haters of overblown prog, get it. It might change your opinion. Best song: LIVING IN THE PAST
Track listing: 1) A Song For Jeffrey; 2) Love Story; 3) Christmas Song; 4) Living In The Past; 5) Driving Song; 6) Sweet Dreams; 7) Singing All Day; 8) Witch's Promise; 9) Inside; 10) Just Trying To Be; 11) By Kind Permission Of; 12) Dharma For One; 13) Wond'ring Again; 14) Locomotive Breath; 15) Life Is A Long Song; 16) Up The Pool; 17) Dr. Bogenbroom; 18) For Later; 19) Nursie.
(Hope you don't mind that previous mail-your-ideas line in the reader comments section. I try to follow my concept, see, and if it sometimes looks offensive, don't forget that it's undertaken in the name of the Idea). You might actually not believe it, but for a short while the Tullers were not just another bunch of pretentious prog rock giants - they wedition only has one track in all, and it's a real pain in the butt to have to wait through all the filler to get to the good sections, which irritates me even further.
Of course, you'll have to love this album if you actually want to qualify as hardcore Tuller. This and Minstrel In The Gallery are, like, the ultimate tests: if you stand 'em, welcome to the elitist club of Anderson worshippers. I mean, if the reviewer refuses to join it, it's no reason to follow suite, isn't it? Who knows, you might enjoy A Passion Play even moar than some of the commenting gentlemen below. But this is a highly acquired taste; objectively, A Passion Play is the first album that adds absolutely nothing new to the Tull legacy. I mean, you wouldn't want to argue that Ian's saxophone is a major and crucial innovation for the band, now would you?
READER COMMENTS SECTION
WARCHILD
Year Of Release: 1974 Record rating = 7 Overall rating = 10
Concept again, but the songs are shorter and catchier and why not give it a try? It's moody. Best song: BUNGLE IN THE JUNGLE
Track listing: 1) Warchild; 2) Queen And Country; 3) Ladies; 4) Back Door Angels; 5) Sealion; 6) Skating Away On The Thin Ice Of A New Day; 7) Bungle In The Jungle; 8) Only Solitaire; 9) The Third Hoorah; 10) Two Fingers.
Well, there you are. Even if Ian had always said he didn't give a damn about critical opinion, he must have still felt uncomfortable about the bashing-out of A Passion Play. Because on his next release he's finally increased the number of tracks to a whole ten. And I don't want to say the previous two albums' main flaw was the lengthiness. Nope; I've always said things like Thick As A Brick and stuff were just your ordinary song collections with the only difference that the pauses between tracks have been switched for non-breaking instrumental links. But I've also come to realize pauses between songs are really vital. Absolutely necessary, in fact. For three reasons: first of all, you can always run off to the bathroom without having to push the PAUSE button; second, you can always spend all the time you want there without having to rush back and resume playing before your CD player automatically disables the pause; and third, you don't have to fast forward the actual track with cusses and obscenities only to find out you don't really remember what exact minute you were listening to. Seriously now. These ten songs really show that, unfortunately, the main problem with A Passion Play wasn't the bad abuse of 'conceptuality' and self-indulgence. The main problem was that Ian's songwriting talents have slowly begun to wane. By now he's slowly steering into the direction of his own fantasies and dreams which actually brought about his total commercial downfall in a couple years. Artistic, too. I'm not going to pretend I'm a big fan of Mr Ian Anderson's fantasy world. Like one Peter Gabriel said, 'I know what I like, and I like what I know'. I couldn't agree moar. It's not that I'd like Ian's music to sound commercial or anything - I'm just trying to say that somewhere on the way Ian had apparently lost the Major Artist's Filter that would allow him to sort out the mediocrities and leave in only the "pure gold". Just look at the band's creativity, for Chrissake - out of all the notorious prog rock acts, Jethro Tull were the only band that stuck to a strict one-album-per-year schedule all throughout the Seventies. Not to mention all those rarities that were released afterwards on anniversary boxsets and suchlike. With such a flood of productivity - all due to Ian's complete rejection of the Filter - it was inevitable that the band would soon be drowning in a sea of pretention and questionable fantasies, and its devoted following reduced from millions all over the world to a small, compact groups of people who had the luck (or the misfortune) to possess a mind similar or equal to that of Ian's.
Well, thank your lucky stars that there's still a lot to cheer about on Warchild; unlike whatever followed it, it can be said to be at least a slight rebound into the world of "pre-Passion Play". Like I said, it's certainly conceptual, and the nature of the concept is quite clear: as usual, Ian goes ridiculizing society and mocking at the establishment with some really clever lyrics, adding certain obscure anti-war references and, well, intriguing imagery that will leave one completely satisfied. In fact, if anything has taken a turn for the better since Play, it's the lyrics: Ian has obviously turned away from Yes-like poetic spontaneous nonsense and made up some really interesting, er, 'texts'. Check 'em out even if you don't have the album, they're quite deserving.
As for the music, about half of the album is really really good (quite a good percentage for post-1972 Tull). The title track leads off the record with some subtle majesty (the refrain 'Warchild/Dance the days and dance the nights away' is especially memorable). It has a strange atmosphere, never found on any Tull record both before and after - something in the Spanish style, I'd bet, but I'm not too sure. 'Sealion' has a great melody, too - I confess I somewhat prefer the 'alternate' version found on Nightcap (with silly lyrics by Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond that have a lot to do wowerful, inspiring anthem ('Flying Colours') that's energized beyond our biggest hopes.
There's even a funny spooky groove - 'Watching Me Watching You', with crazy drum patterns strewn throughout the song in order to emphasize the sense of paranoia. (Somehow, this song has without any apparent reason made it onto the lowest rung of Tull compositions among the fans; I suppose it has something to do with it sounding a wee bit New Wave-ish, and you know that rabid Tull fans and New Wave tolerance is a near-incompatible thing.) And finally, the album ends on a gentle and touching note with a nod to 'Grace' (the charming farewell of 'Cheerio').
Filler? The filler amount is surprisingly low; actually, I count just one piece of filler, the endless 'Seal Driver' which is the only song on here that doesn't have a well defined hook and drives on fueled by energy alone. Martin's solo in the middle is beautiful, but so is his solo on, say, 'Broadsword', so the song sure has a lot of competition. But forget that, that's just one song: the lowest rate of filler on a Tull album since at least Thick As A Brick. The actual melodies are all distinguishable, rarely boring, and there's almost no sign of those uninspired, poorly-crafted 'jams' that infest their Seventies catalogue: the songs are relatively short and always straight to the point.
In all, this could have been a perfect formula for late-period Tull: retro rockers/ballads with a significant, but not over-the-top touch of modern production values. For once, Ian came close to learning and clearly understanding the possibilities of "modern technologies" and settling into a groove that would allow him to combine modern-sounding arrangements with his age-old gift for hooks and melodies. Who knows? Maybe if Jethro Tull had only stuck with this formula for some moar time they'd even succeed in gaining some long-lost respect. With an album like Broadsword, Ian clearly let us know that he, too, could be able to survive the 'hard times' and creatively reinvent himself, like Genesis and Yes, and even better than Genesis and Yes, because the latter actually reinvented themselves as mainstream pop bands - excellent mainstream pop bands, to be sure (particularly Genesis in 1981-83), but mainstream pop bands all the same. Ian reinvented himself as the same old witty prog-rocker, who can even tame lame lifeless Eighties production if the need arises.
But no, that was not to happen. As it was, the silly need to 'progress' and 'experiment' eventually drove Ian to the point of recording some of the worst trash that could ever come out of the whole prog-rock bunch - and then, to a complete and lengthy period of total musical degradation.
READER COMMENTS SECTION
UNDER WRAPS
Year Of Release: 1984 Record rating = 2 Overall rating = 5
A tuneless bunch of computer-produced noise. Avoid this at all costs. Best song: LAP OF LUXURY
Track listing: 1) Lap Of Luxury; 2) Under Wraps # 1; 3) European Legacy; 4) Later That Same Evening; 5) Saboteur; 6) Radio Free Moscow; 7) Astronomy; 8) Tundra; 9) Nobody's Car; 10) Heat; 11) Under Wraps # 2; 12) Paparazzi; 13) Apogee; 14) Automotive Engineering; 15) General Crossing.
Really. The unpleasant things that populated the last two Tull albums are all here (drum machines, synths, diverse production gimmicks and sound effects), all right. But this time they're not compensated neither with good melodies nor with... hell, nor with anything else. Even Barre's guitar, which slowly tends to evolve to the kind of metal crap that was so typical for the Eighties, is rarely heard among the forests and seas of electronic sound. I really don't know what Ian was thinking about and how much effort did he really shove into this piece of worthless plastic. Well, I mean, on the other hand, I do know what Ian was thinking about. He was thinking about how synthesizers and electronics could turn out to be the real true future of music and decided to jump on the bandwagon - having missed the New Wave bandwagon, he thought it would have been nice to at least catch the synth pop bandwagon. But I don't hate the album for the same reason that Tull fans usually hate it, i.e. for the reason that "Jethro Tull are a prog-rock band! What are they doing with all that electronica pop crap?". As you might have noticed, I have evaluated Broadsword And The Beast rather highly. No, the reason is that the band, and Ian in particular, simply missed the very point of synth-pop. Essentially, synth-pop is just a facilitated way of making simple, effective pop/rock tunes - it has no value in itself whatsoever. Creating, for instance, a touching atmospheric texture within the world of synth-pop is a task worthy of a Hercules. And when you try to mix synth-pop with traces of 'progressive' - complex song structures, pretentious lyrics, untrivial, hookless melodies - the result can only be predicted as a complete disaster. Anderson tries to breathe life into these clumsy, robotic numbers, but all he results in is a humourless, unmemorable offense to the good memory of Jethro Tull.
The track listing here is endless, with bonus tracks for the CD, and this only makes the hatred grow. Even the lyrics have degenerated to either an uncompromised paranoid spy-mania ('Nobody's Car', 'Saboteur', 'Radio Free Moscow') or lousy social critique ('Lap Of Luxury'). Despite this, 'Lap Of Luxury' seems to be one of the few really listenable songs on here, with an actual melody and groove going on. It's one of the songs on here that doesn't try to be complex, concentrating instead on a couple of solid vocal hooks, and as a result, it works better than almost anything else.
The title track is also nice, displaying some genuine emotion (even though it's indeed 'under wraps', bein
71- "nothing visible to the eye provides a reason"---a fitting phrase for what's happened.
And to think my day actually started off pretty well.
I woke up having had an almost wet-dream about Thumper. She was doing this crazy Margaretha Geertruida Zelle dance, veil after coloured veil thrown aside, though oddly enough never landing, rather flying around her as if she were in the middle of some kind of gentle twister, these sheer sheets of fabric continuing to encircle her, even as she removes moar and moar of them, allowing me only momentary glimpses of her body, her smooth skin, her mouth, her waist, her---ah, yes, I get a glimpse of that too, and I'm moving towards her, moving past all that interference, certain that with every step I take I'll soon have her, after all she's almost taken everything off, no she has taken everything off, her knees are spreading apart, just a few moar veils to get past and I'll be able to see her, not just bits & pieces of her, but all of her, no longer molested by all this nonsense, in fact I'm there already which means I'm about to enter her which apparently is enough to blow the circuit, hit the switch, prohibit that sublime and much anticipated conclusion, leaving me blind in the daylight stream pouring through my window.
Fuck.
I go to cuff in the shower. At least the water's not and there's enough steam to fog the mirror. Afterwards, I pack my pipe and light up. Wake & Bake. Moar like Wash & Bake. Half a bowl of cereal and a show of bourbon later, I'm there, my friendly haze having finally arrived. I'm ready for work.
Parking's easy to find. On Vista. I jog up to Sunset, even jog up the stairs, practically skipping past the By Appointment Only sign. Why skipping? Because as I step into the Shop I know I'm not even one minute late, which is not usually the case for me. The expression on my boss's face reveals just how astHELPIMABUGonishing an achievement this is. I couldn't care less about him. I want to see Thumper. I want to find out if she's really wearing any of that diaphanous rainbow fabric I was dreaming about.
Of course she's not there, but that doesn't get me down. I'm still optimistic she'll arrive. And if not today, why fuck, tomorrow's just another day away.
A sentiment I could almost sing.
I immediately sit down at the side counter and start working, mainly because I don't want to deal with my boss which would mean jeopardizing my good mood. Of course he couldn't care less about me or my mood. He approaches, clearing his throat. He will talk, he will ruin everything, except it suddenly penetrates that chalky material he actually insists on calling his brain, that I'm building his precious points, and sure enough this insight prohibits his trap from opening and he leaves me alone.
Points are basically clusters of needles used to shade the skin. They are necessary because a single point amounts to a prick not much bigger than this period ".". Okay, maybe a little bigger. Anyway, five needles go into what's called a 5, seven for 7's and so on---all soldered together towards the base.
I actually enjoy making them. There's something pleasant about concentrating on the subtle details, the precision required, constantly checking and re-checking to assure yourself that yes indeed the sharps are level, in the correct arrangement, ready at last to be fixed in place with dots of hot solder. Then I re-check all my re-checking: the points must not be too close not too far apart nor skewed in any way, and only then, if I'm satisfied, which I usually am---though take heed "usually" does not mean "always"---will I scrub the shafts and put them aside to be sterilized later in the ultrasound or Autoclave.
My boss may think I can't draw worth shit but he knows I build needles better than anyone. He calls me all the time on my tardiness, my tendency to drift & moither and of course the odds that I'll ever get to tattoo anything---"Johnny, nothing you do, (shaking his head) no one's ever gonna wanna make permanent, unless they're crazy, and let me tell you something Johnny, crazies never pay"---but about my needle making I've never heard him complain once.
Anyway, a couple of hours whiz by. I'm finishing up a batch of 5's---my boss's cluster of choice---when he finally speaks, telling me to pull some bottles of black and purple ink and fill a few caps while I'm at it. We keep stuff in the storeroom in back. It's a sizeable space, big enough to fit a small work table in. You have to climb eight pretty steeps steps to reach it. That's where we stock all the extras, and we have extras for almost everything, except light bulbs. For some reason my boss hasn't picked up any extra light bulbs in a while. Today, of course, I flick the switch, and FLASH! BLAM! POP!, okay, scratch the blam, the storeroom bulb burns out. I recommence flicking, as if such insistent, highly repetitive and at this point pointless action could actually resurrect the light. It doesn't. The switch has been rendered meaningless, forcing me to feel my way around in the dark. I keep the door open so I can see okay, but it still takes me awhile to negotiate the shadows before I can locate caps and ink.
By now, the sweet effects of my dream, to say nothing of the soft thrumming delivered care of alcohol and Oregon bud, have worn off, though I still continue to think about Thumper, slowly coming to grips with the fact that she won't be visiting today. This causes my spirits to drop substantially, until I realize I have no way of knowing that for certain. After all, there's still half a day left. No, she's not coming. I know it. I can feel it in my gut. That's okay. Tomorrow's---aw, fuck that.
I start filling caps with purple, concentrating on its texture, that strange hue, imagining I can actually observe the rapid pulse of its bandwidth. These are stupid thoughts, and as if to confirm that sentiment, darkness pushes in on me. Suddenly the slash of light on my hands looks sharp enough to cut me. real sharp. Move and it will cit me. I do move and guess what? I start o bleed. The laceration isn't deep but important stuff has been struck, leaking over the table and floor. Lost.
I don't have long.
Except I'm not bleeding though I am breathing hard. Real hard. I don't need to touch my face to know that there are now beads of sweat slipping off my forehead, flicking of my eyelids, streaming down the back of my neck. Cold as hands. Hands of the dead. Something terrible is going on here. Going extremely wrong. Get out, I think. I want to get out. But I can't move.
Then as if this were nothing but a grim prelude, shit really starts to happen.
There's that awful taste again, sharp as rust, wrapping around my tongue.
Worse, I'm no longer alone.
Impossible.
Not impossible.
This time it's human.
Maybe not.
Extremely long fingers.
A sucking sound too. Sucking on teeth, teeth already torn from the gums.
I don't know how I know this.
But it's already to late, I've seen the eyes. The eyes. They have no whites. I haven't seen this. The way they glisten the glisten red. Then it begins reaching for me, slowly unfolding itself ot of its corner, mad meat all of it, but I understand. These eyes are full of blood.
Except I'm only looking at shadows and shelves.
Of course, I'm alone.
And then, behind me, the door closes.
The rest is in pieces. A scream, a howl, a roar. All's warping, or splintering. That makes no sense. There's a terrible banging. The air's rank with stench. At least that's not a mystery. I know the source. Boy, do I ever. I've shit myself. Pissed myself too. I can't believe it. Urine soaking into my pants, fecal matter running down the back of my legs, I'm caught in it, must run and hide from it, but I still can't move. In fact, the moar I try to escape, the less I can breathe. The moar I try to hold on, the less I can focus. Something's leaving me. Parts of me.
Everything falls apart.
Stories heard but not recalled.
Letters too.
Words filling my head. Fragmenting like artillery shells. Shrapnel, like syllables, flying everywhere. Terrible syllables. Sharp. Cracked. Travelling at murderous speed. Tearing through it all in a very, very bad perhaps even irreparable way.
Known.
Some.
Call.
Is.
Air.
Am?
Incoherent---yes.
Without meaning---I'm afraid not.
The shape of a shape of a shape of a face dis(as)sembling right before my eyes. What wail embittled break Like a hawk. Another Maldon or no Maldon at all, on snowy days, or not snowy at all, far beyond the edge of any reasonable awareness. This is what it feels like to be really afraid. Though of course it doesn't. None of this can truly approach the reality of that fear, there in the midst of all that bedlam, like the sound of a heart or some other unholy blast, desperate & dying, slamming, no banging into the thin wall of my inner ear, paper thin in fact, attempting to shatter inside what had already been shattered long ago.
I should be dead.
Why am I still here?
And as that question appears---concise, in order, properly accented---I see I'm holding onto the tray loaded with all those caps and bottles of black and purple ink. Not only that but I'm already walking as fast as I can through the doorway. The door is open though I did not open it. I stub my toe. I'm falling down the stairs, tripping over myself, hurling the tray in the air, the caps, the ink, all of it, floating now above me, as my hands, independent of anything I might have thought to suggest, reach up to protect my head. Something hisses and slashes out at the back of my neck. It doesn't matter. Down I go, head first, somersaulting down those eight pretty steep steps, a wild blur, hip, elbows, even as I also, at the same time, remain dimly aware of so much ink coming down like a bad rain, splattering around me, everywhere, covering my, even the tray hitting me, though that doesn't hurt, the caps scattering across the floor, and of course the accompanying racket, telling my boss, telling them all, whoever else was there--- What? not that it was over, it wasn't, not yet
The wind's knocked out of me. It's not coming back. Here's where I die, I think. And it's true, I'm possessed by the premonition of what will be, what has to be, my inevitable asphyxiation. At least that's what they see, my boss and crew, as they come running to the back, called there by all that clatter & mess. What they can't see though is the omen seen in a fall, my fall, as I'm doused in black ink, my hands now completely covered, and see the floor is black, and---have you anticipated this or should I be moar explicit?---jet on jet; for a blinding instant I've watched my hand vanish, in fact of me has vanished, one hell of a disappearing act, too, the already foreseen dissolution of the self, lost without contrast, slipping into oblivion, until mid-gasp I catch sight of my reflection in the back of the tray, the ghost in the way: seems I'm not gone, granting contrast, and thus splattered with purple, as have my arms, granting contrast, and thus defining me, marking me, and at least for the moment, preserving me.
Suddenly I can breathe and with each breath the terror rapidly dissipates.
My boss, however, is scared shitless.
"Jesus Christ Johnny," he says, "Are you okay? What happened?"
Can't you see I've shit myself, I think to shout. But now I see that I haven't. Except for the ink blotting my threads, my pants are bone dry.
I mumble something about how much my toe hurts.
He takes that to mean I'm alright and won't try to sue him from a wheelchair.
Later a patron points out the long, bloody scratch on the back of my neck.
I'm unable to respond.
Now, though, I realize what I should have said---in the spirit of the dark; in the spirit of the staircase ---
"Known some call is air am."
Which is to say ---
"I am not what I used to be."
That's just disgusting.
Questioning the existence of tl;dr
The last question was asked for the first time, half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a time when humanity first stepped into the light. The question came about as a result of a five dollar bet over highballs, and it happened this way:
Alexander Adell and Bertram Lupov were two of the faithful attendants of Multivac. As well as any human beings could, they knew what lay behind the cold, clicking, flashing face -- miles and miles of face -- of that giant computer. They had at least a vague notion of the general plan of relays and circuits that had long since grown past the point where any single human could possibly have a firm grasp of the whole.
Multivac was self-adjusting and self-correcting. It had to be, for nothing human could adjust and correct it quickly enough or even adequately enough -- so Adell and Lupov attended the monstrous giant only lightly and superficially, yet as well as any men could. They fed it data, adjusted questions to its needs and translated the answers that were issued. Certainly they, and all others like them, were fully entitled to share In the glory that was Multivac's.
For decades, Multivac had helped design the ships and plot the trajectories that enabled man to reach the Moon, Mars, and Venus, but past that, Earth's poor resources could not support the ships. Too much energy was needed for the long trips. Earth exploited its coal and uranium with increasing efficiency, but there was only so much of both.
But slowly Multivac learned enough to answer deeper questions moar fundamentally, and on May 14, 2061, what had been theory, became fact.
The energy of the sun was stored, converted, and utilized directly on a planet-wide scale. All Earth turned off its burning coal, its fissioning uranium, and flipped the switch that connected all of it to a small station, one mile in diameter, circling the Earth at half the distance of the Moon. All Earth ran by invisible beams of sunpower.
Seven days had not sufficed to dim the glory of it and Adell and Lupov finally managed to escape from the public function, and to meet in quiet where no one would think of looking for them, in the deserted underground chambers, where portions of the mighty buried body of Multivac showed. Unattended, idling, sorting data with contented lazy clickings, Multivac, too, had earned its vacation and the boys appreciated that. They had no intention, originally, of disturbing it.
They had brought a bottle with them, and their only concern at the moment was to relax in the company of each other and the bottle.
"It's amazing when you think of it," said Adell. His broad face had lines of weariness in it, and he stirred his drink slowly with a glass rod, watching the cubes of ice slur clumsily about. "All the energy we can possibly ever use for free. Enough energy, if we wanted to draw on it, to melt all Earth into a big drop of impure liquid iron, and still never miss the energy so used. All the energy we could ever use, forever and forever and forever."
Lupov cocked his head sideways. He had a trick of doing that when he wanted to be contrary, and he wanted to be contrary now, partly because he had had to carry the ice and glassware. "Not forever," he said.
"Oh, hell, just about forever. Till the sun runs down, Bert."
"That's not forever."
"All right, then. Billions and billions of years. Twenty billion, maybe. Are you satisfied?"
Lupov put his fingers through his thinning hair as though to reassure himself that some was still left and sipped gently at his own drink. "Twenty billion years isn't forever."
"Will, it will last our time, won't it?"
"So would the coal and uranium."
"All right, but now we can hook up each individual spaceship to the Solar Station, and it can go to Pluto and back a million times without ever worrying about fuel. You can't do THAT on coal and uranium. Ask Multivac, if you don't believe me."
"I don't have to ask Multivac. I know that."
"Then stop running down what Multivac's done for us," said Adell, blazing up. "It did all right."
"Who says it didn't? What I say is that a sun won't last forever. That's all I'm saying. We're safe for twenty billion years, but then what?" Lupov pointed a slightly shaky finger at the other. "And don't say we'll switch to another sun."
There was silence for a while. Adell put his glass to his lips only occasionally, and Lupov's eyes slowly closed. They rested.
Then Lupov's eyes snapped open. "You're thinking we'll switch to another sun when ours is done, aren't you?"
"I'm not thinking."
"Sure you are. You're weak on logic, that's the trouble with you. You're like the guy in the story who was caught in a sudden shower and Who ran to a grove of trees and got under one. He wasn't worried, you see, because he figured when one tree got wet through, he would just get under another one."
"I get it," said Adell. "Don't shout. When the sun is done, the other stars will be gone, too."
"Darn right they will," muttered Lupov. "It all had a beginning in the original cosmic explosion, whatever that was, and it'll all have an end when all the stars run down. Some run down faster than others. Hell, the giants won't last a hundred million years. The sun will last twenty billion years and maybe the dwarfs will last a hundred billion for all the good they are. But just give us a trillion years and everything will be dark. Entropy has to increase to maximum, that's all."
"I know all about entropy," said Adell, standing on his dignity.
"The hell you do."
"I know as much as you do."
"Then you know everything's got to run down someday."
"All right. Who says they won't?"
"You did, you poor sap. You said we had all the energy we needed, forever. You said 'forever.'"
"It was Adell's turn to be contrary. "Maybe we can build things up again someday," he said.
"Never."
"Why not? Someday."
"Never."
"Ask Multivac."
"You ask Multivac. I dare you. Five dollars says it can't be done."
"Adell was just drunk enough to try, just sober enough to be able to phrase the necessary symbols and operations into a question which, in words, might have corresponded to this: Will mankind one day without the net expenditure of energy be able to restore the sun to its full youthfulness even after it had died of old age?
Or maybe it could be put moar simply like this: How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?
Multivac fell dead and silent. The slow flashing of lights ceased, the distant sounds of clicking relays ended.
Then, just as the frightened technicians felt they could hold their breath no longer, there was a sudden springing to life of the teletype attached to that portion of Multivac. Five words were printed: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
"No bet," whispered Lupov. They left hurriedly.
By next morning, the two, plagued with throbbing head and cottony mouth, had forgotten about the incident.
SPAM FROM THE CHANS!
Return to the Index page! NOW! Or, to summarize, TL;DR. http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php?title=TL%3BDR&action=edit
TL;DR
