{"id":4149,"date":"2005-10-13T01:01:41","date_gmt":"2005-10-13T05:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/formerlyknownas\/2005\/10\/13\/last-words-on-columbus-for-no"},"modified":"2011-08-05T14:54:30","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T18:54:30","slug":"last-words-on-columbus-for-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2005\/10\/13\/last-words-on-columbus-for-now\/","title":{"rendered":"last words on Columbus (for now)"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

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Two days ago, we opined “<\/FONT>it’s hard to discover Columbus<\/FONT><\/A>.”  This evening, <\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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I started reading a rollicking piece of nonfiction that might help me understand <\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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old Cristoforo better.  It’s Martin Dugard’s new book The Last Voyage of Columbus<\/EM><\/A>:<\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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Being the Epic Tale of the Great Captain’s Fourth Expedition, Including Accounts <\/EM><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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of Swordfight, Mutiny, Shipwreck, Gold, War, Hurricane, and Discovery<\/EM> (2005).  <\/EM><\/FONT><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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<\/FONT><\/EM><\/SPAN><\/SPAN> <\/DIV>
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Dugard ends the book with these words:<\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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                                                                                                     \"columbus\"<\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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“No matter their merits, arguments will follow Columbus forever. <\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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History <\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN>does not know what to make of the Admiral of the Ocean <\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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Sea or how to <\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN>categorize the ramifications of his discoveries <\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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without passions of one <\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN>kind or another intruding. The explorer will <\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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always remain something of <\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN>an enigma. He was Italian, yet claimed <\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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the New World for Spain. He was <\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN>a compassionate Christian, yet <\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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considered slavery a viable form of <\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN>commerce. He was a man of <\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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great charisma whose passion sometimes <\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN>turned others against <\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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him.  <\/SPAN><\/SPAN>He was an explorer – a wanderer, really – who <\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN>fancied himself <\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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capable of great bureaucratic skills. His advocates marveled <\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN>at his <\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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daring and tenaciousness, persevering so long in his quest for funding <\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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<\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN>and then defying conventional wisdom to sail across an uncharted sea. <\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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His <\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN>detractors thought him brutal and weak. The only certainty about <\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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Columbus <\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN>is that, for better or worse, he chose to live a bold life rather <\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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than settle for <\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN>mediocrity.”<\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/DIV><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
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Sounds about right to me.  Choosing to “live a bold life rather than settle for<\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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mediocrity” is not a bad epitaph.  I wish we could also say Columbus sought <\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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to live <\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN>the Golden Rule, rather than seeking gold for rulers — and himself<\/EM>.<\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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<\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN> <\/DIV>
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<\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN> <\/DIV>
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\"the<\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/DIV>
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<\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/SPAN> <\/DIV>
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As we leave Columbus’ day behind, here is a sneak preview of<\/EM><\/FONT><\/DIV>
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our newest Honored Guest poet, Andrew Riutta.  You will see <\/EM><\/FONT><\/DIV>
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that there was no affirmative action or cronyism involved when I <\/EM><\/FONT><\/DIV>
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asked this “rising star” Italo-American haiku poet to join us at <\/EM><\/FONT><\/DIV>
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f\/k\/a.   More about Andrew <\/EM><\/FONT>tomorrow.<\/EM><\/FONT> <\/DIV>
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<\/FONT> <\/DIV>
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\n

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north star…
as if I could find
my way<\/FONT><\/P><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
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 <\/P>
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 <\/P>
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 <\/P>
\n


\n

\n

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mayfly
a shattered world
through its wing<\/FONT><\/P><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
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\n

<\/FONT><\/P><\/FONT>
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<\/P>
\n

<\/FONT> <\/P>
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\n

\n

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<\/FONT> <\/P>
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<\/FONT> <\/P><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
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<\/FONT> <\/P>
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half moon—
between two crickets
a year has passed<\/FONT><\/P><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
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<\/FONT> <\/P>
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<\/FONT> <\/P>
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<\/FONT> <\/P>
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 <\/P>
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starlit mountain…
the sound of water
returning to itself<\/FONT><\/P><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n

<\/FONT> <\/P>
\n

Andrew Riutta<\/FONT><\/A> <\/FONT>from Pipeline, Simply Haiku<\/A><\/EM> (Summer 2005, vol. 3:2)<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P>
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                                                                                                                         \"pirateS\"<\/FONT><\/P><\/DIV><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/DIV><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two days ago, we opined “it’s hard to discover Columbus.”  This evening, I started reading a rollicking piece of nonfiction that might help me understand old Cristoforo better.  It’s Martin Dugard’s new book The Last Voyage of Columbus: Being the Epic Tale of the Great Captain’s Fourth Expedition, Including Accounts of Swordfight, Mutiny, Shipwreck, Gold, War, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2926],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pre-06-2006"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kP1R-14V","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4149"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12977,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4149\/revisions\/12977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}