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Beata Beatrix was Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s next step, started in earnest in 1864, two years after Lizzie’s death, and completed in 1870, although he had been making preliminary studies when she was still alive. The background sets this in Florence, with its distinctive Ponte Vecchio over the River Arno, and the sundial sets the time as nine o’clock in the morning, the time of Beatrice Portinari’s death.
Behind the ecstatic figure of Beatrice are Dante (right) with his cap, and the angelic figure of Love at the left. Beatrice is pale and her death is approaching. Her eyes are closed, waiting for release. A red bird with a halo has brought her a poppy flower, a direct association with sleep and laudanum. Beatrice is unmistakably Lizzie.
For once, we have the artist’s account of the reading of his own painting, in a letter Rossetti wrote to its first owner in 1871. He establishes that his literary reference is Vita Nuova, and the work embodies “symbolically the death of Beatrice as treated in that work.” But it doesn’t represent death as such, rather ‘renders’ it “under the semblance of a trance”, in which she is suddenly “rapt” from Earth to Heaven.
The red bird is the messenger of death, who drops a poppy flower into Beatrice’s hands, as she has closed her eyes to see the face of God. This could equally have referred to Lizzie rather than Beatrice.
Rossetti never worked this obsession out of his system. In 1871, he returned to the theme in what proved to be his largest painting ever, based on an original watercolour study, now in the Tate Gallery, he had made as early as 1856.
A decade after Lizzie’s death, Rossetti wove the more complex Dante’s Dream on the Day of the Death of Beatrice, of which this is the artist’s 1880 copy of his 1871 original. There are references to Beata Beatrix, in the red birds at the left and right edges, and his model for Beatrice was Jane Morris, wife of William Morris, designer and close friend. Jane Burden, as she was before her marriage to William Morris, had a similar background to Lizzie Siddall, from humble origins to artists’ model, then into the Pre-Raphaelite circle. Jane and Rossetti became lovers in around 1865 when he was still working on Beata Beatrix, but their relationship cooled later.
Rossetti casts the dream insert in red, for love, showing a red and winged angel of love kissing the dying Beatrice. He clutches not a flower – there are red roses strewn all over the floor – but an arrow of love. The model for the woman on the right was Marie Spartali Stillman, and her husband William James Stillman modelled for Dante’s face.
The finest among Rossetti’s last paintings of Beatrice is The Salutation of Beatrice (1880-82), painted in the last couple of years of his life. It is drawn in part from the figure of Beatrice in the left panel of his earlier Salutation of Beatrice, again using Jane Morris as his model. Sat on a well in the distance are the figures of Dante and the same red angel of Love, or maybe death after all.
In that couple of years before his death, as Rossetti was working on his last paintings of Dante’s beloved Beatrice, two other artists associated with the Pre-Raphaelites were also at work on their depictions of her. Henry Holiday was researching for his 1883 painting Dante meets Beatrice at Ponte Santa Trinita, and Marie Spartali Stillman painted the first of her several watercolours of Dante and Beatrice.
The year after Rossetti’s death, Henry Holiday completed his painting of the second occasion on which Dante claimed he had met with his beloved, in Dante meets Beatrice at Ponte Santa Trinita (1883). Holiday devoted great effort to making this view as authentic as possible. In 1881, the year before Rossetti’s death, he travelled to Florence to make studies, and researched the buildings at the time, which he turned into clay models for a 3D reference. He also got John Trivett Nettleship, a noted animal painter, to paint the pigeons so that they were faithful.
Marie Spartali, as she was before her marriage in 1871, was one of a trio of beautiful young women from Greek migrant families in London who had become known as the Three Graces. Her father, then a wealthy merchant, entertained Pre-Raphaelite painters including Rossetti, who referred to Marie as a “stunner”.
The Three Graces modelled for the artists of the day, and Marie appears as one of the figures in Rossetti’s painting of Dante’s Dream on the Day of the Death of Beatrice (1871, 1880). She learned to paint in private lessons from Ford Madox Brown, and was soon making her own images based on the writings of Dante, and Rossetti’s translations of them into English.
The full title of her “Certain ladies of her companionship gathered themselves unto Beatrice…” (1880) actually quotes even more from Dante’s Vita Nuova: “Certain ladies of her companionship gathered themselves unto Beatrice where she kept alone in weeping. And as they passed in and out, I would hear them speak concerning her, how she wept.”
This refers to the ladies of Florence who paid their respects to Beatrice as she kept vigil following her father’s death. Dante is shown sat outside the house, wearing his customary chaperon hat, his head bowed, and being comforted by two of the women who had visited Beatrice inside.
In 1896, Marie Spartali Stillman revisited Dante’s Vita Nuova through Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s popular translation into English. Her earlier version of Beatrice (1896) shows Dante’s beloved Beatrice lost in contemplation while reading, an intimate insight set firmly in the Pre-Raphaelite mediaeval, also seen in detail below.
Her second treatment of Beatrice (1898) employs similar floral language, perhaps emphasising innocence in its lilies, but is less contemplative and more sensual, in a manner perhaps more typical of Rossetti.
In the months before the outbreak of the First World War, she painted The Pilgrim Folk (1914), which may well have been a double valediction, as both her last major painting and her farewell to Italy. It again refers to Dante’s Vita Nuova via Rossetti, a quotation from which was shown with the painting. This passage contains Dante’s account of Beatrice’s death to a group of newly-arrived pilgrims.
Dante leans out from a window at the left, addressing three pilgrims below. At the lower left corner, the winged figure of Love crouches in grief, poppies scattered in front of him, a reference to Rossetti’s paintings. Pilgrims around the well are taking refreshment after their travels, and more are arriving through the alley beyond. Black crows fly in flocks above, symbolising death. The landscape behind is very Italian, and the whole has a fairy-tale unreality about its mediaeval details.
Stillman had used Rossetti’s symbols elsewhere too, including in one of her finest paintings, Love’s Messenger completed in 1885, three years after his death.
A young woman stands by her embroidery at an outside window. On her right hand is a messenger dove/pigeon, to which a letter is attached. She clutches that letter to her breast with her left hand, implying that its contents relate to matters of the heart. The dove is being fed corn, which could either be its reward for having reached its destination (thus the woman is the recipient of the message), or preparation for its departure (she is the sender).
On balance, the presence of corn on the windowsill implies that it is more likely that the dove has just arrived, and the woman is the recipient. But look closely at the embroidery, and she is making an image of one of Rossetti’s angels of love, complete with red wings and a bow and arrow.
There’s another artist who is perhaps the most surprising of all those who painted Beatrice: Odilon Redon (1840–1916), a contemporary of Stillman, who is perhaps as different as you could get in terms of background and style.
Redon’s pastel portrait of Beatrice from 1885 was turned into a print a decade or so later, and appears to have been laid down in pure gold. Like so many other portraits of her, it contains no literary references to indicate whether she is the possibly physical Beatrice from Vita Nuova, or the spiritual guide from the Divine Comedy.
Throughout his career, Henri-Jean Guillaume Martin painted scenes from Dante’s Divine Comedy. This colour lithograph refers to the end of the middle book Purgatory, in which Dante is reunited with his beloved Beatrice, who leads him through the final book, Paradise.
At the same time that Stillman was painting her Pilgrim Folk above, Redon painted one of his relatively few works in oils, of Dante and Beatrice (1914). Their heads, with eyes closed so they can see their God, are among the clouds above the cliffs of a coastline suggestive of Purgatory.
So who was Beatrice Portinari?
Born in Florence in about 1265, making her about the same age as Dante, she was the daughter of a rich banker. By the time she was about 22, she had married another banker, Simone dei Bardi. She is mentioned in the will that her father made in 1287, and is thought to have died in Florence on 8 June 1290, at the age of about 25.
Beyond that, and Dante’s non-specific references to a Beatrice, who could quite easily be someone completely different, or a symbolic figure, there seems nothing to tell. But there are so many wonderful paintings of such an unknown woman.
OpenAI 成立前夜，核心大脑 Ilya 差点反悔留在谷歌。
马斯克的律师举着一本被强制公开的私密日记，当着所有人的面，一字一句地读出了 OpenAI 总裁 Greg Brockman 在夜深人静时的盘算
「这是我们摆脱 Elon Musk 的唯一机会……让我赚到 10 亿美元。」
暴怒的马斯克摔门离去，Greg Brockman 在座位上瑟瑟发抖，「真以为他要动手打人」。
这场 AI 世纪庭审现场的走向，比任何一部美剧都要荒诞。
54 岁的马斯克和 41 岁的奥特曼，在 X 上多年以来的互相指责，到了刺刀见红、对簿公堂的这天。
马斯克在第一周的庭审上作证三天，重复最多的一句话是：「你们不能偷一个慈善机构。」
2015 年他出钱出力出名气，帮奥特曼和 Greg Brockman 创办了 OpenAI，承诺 OpenAI 是一个非营利的 AI 研究机构，目标是对抗 Google 的 AI 垄断。
他总共捐了约 3800 万美元。结果 ChatGPT 出来了，公司估值 8500 亿美元，Brockman 个人持股价值 300 亿美元，而他什么都没拿到，还在 2018 年被踢出了董事会。
他说：「是我想出了这个主意，是我起的名字，是我招募了核心人才，把我知道的都教给了他们，提供了所有初始资金。」
马斯克对 OpenAI 及其主要合作伙伴微软提出了超过 1500亿美元 的索赔。他不仅要求赔偿，还要求法院罢免奥特曼的董事会职务，并撤销 OpenAI 转向营利性公司的决定。
OpenAI 则认为，马斯克的诉讼主要是为了打压竞争对手，因为马斯克目前拥有自己的 AI 公司 xAI。
他们提到，在 2017-2018 年间，马斯克本人也曾试图推动 OpenAI 转向营利性结构并寻求绝对控制权。
OpenAI 律师在交叉质询中出示了 2017 年的文件，显示马斯克自己的助理 Jared Birchall 注册了一家名为「Open Artificial Intelligence Technologies」的公司，一个营利性的 OpenAI 替代版本，是马斯克自己主导的。
他也想要那个营利性结构。只是他没能掌控它。
在马斯克作为证人开庭的前两天，他给 Greg Brockman 发了条短信，试探和解可能性。
Brockman 回复：要不双方各撤诉吧。马斯克主动求和没有得到想要的结果，决绝地回应：「本周末结束前，你和奥特曼将成为美国最被痛恨的人。如果你们坚持，就这样吧。」
在外界看来，马斯克是那个高瞻远瞩、为 OpenAI 注入灵魂和早期资金（约 3800 万美元）的教父；但在 OpenAI 的核心团队眼里，这位亿万富翁缺乏对底层技术的敬畏。
新一轮的庭审坐在证人席的是 OpenAI 的 Greg Brockman，他也毫不留情地揭开了马斯克打造的叙事。
当被问及为何当初不愿意让马斯克担任 OpenAI 营利性实体的 CEO 时，Greg Brockman 的回答极其直白：「他懂火箭，他懂电动车。但他以前不懂，我相信他现在也不懂 AI。」
他继续补充了更多细节，研究员 Alec Radford 曾向马斯克展示过一个极其早期的语言大模型，即 ChatGPT 的雏形。
马斯克输入提示词后，对生成的答案极不满意。他当着研究员的面抱怨「这东西太蠢了」，在第二次尝试依然未能如愿后，马斯克留下一句极其刺耳的嘲讽：「这系统蠢到连网上的小屁孩都能做得比它好。」
在算力成本从 2017 年的 3000 万美元狂飙至 2026 年 500 亿美元的今天，大模型的暴力美学已经被证明是成功的王道。但在当时，马斯克的急躁与轻视，让 Greg Brockman 等人坚定了不能将 AGI 交给他的决心。
可以要他的钱，但绝不能让这个人当 CEO，掌控人类未来的 AGI。
当时，为了筹集巨额的算力资金，双方都在试探成立「营利性结构」的可能性。
马斯克给出的方案极其霸道：要么给我绝对控制权，要么把 OpenAI 直接并入特斯拉，用特斯拉的超算来对抗谷歌。
Greg Brockman 表示当时他们感到了深切的恐惧。
时任 OpenAI 的首席科学家 Ilya Sutskever 在给马斯克的邮件中写下了一段话：「我们的目标是避免 AGI 被垄断。如果创造一个结构，让你想绝对控制就能控制，那一定是个坏主意。」
为了安抚马斯克，会议当天，Ilya 甚至亲自画了一幅特斯拉的画作为「善意的信物」送给他，团队还接受了马斯克赠送的几辆特斯拉汽车。但这种近乎讨好的举动，在马斯克对 OpenAI 权力的核心诉求面前不堪一击。
在这场会议上，当 Greg Brockman 委婉地表达团队拒绝交出单方面控制权时，马斯克一言不发地坐了几分钟，随后突然站起，暴怒地绕着桌子走。
Brockman 在证词中说，那一刻他「真以为马斯克要动手打人」。结果，马斯克一把抓起那幅特斯拉的画，摔门而出，并留下最后通牒：「我会停止提供资金，直到你们决定到底要干什么。」
画被拿走了，资金断了，昔日的盟友正式走向决裂。
明面上的资金断了，暗地里的互相防备却开始了。
Brockman 在法庭上还提到，马斯克曾满脸「负罪感」地把他叫进办公室，坦白自己暗中挖走了 OpenAI 的核心大将 Andrej Karpathy，去给特斯拉搞自动驾驶。他还强硬地要求 OpenAI 团队裁掉那些「没有重大贡献」的员工。
而在 OpenAI 这边，高管们也明明知道董事会成员 Shivon Zilis 与马斯克有着极其特殊的私人关系，却隐忍不发，利用这层关系维持着脆弱的平衡，直到马斯克彻底亮出 xAI 这个竞品，才将 Shivon Zilis 清理出局。
但比这些权衡更有意思的是，一本 Brockman 写了十年的私密日记。
这本原本藏在电脑深处的日记，在法律程序的强制要求下被公之于众。
马斯克的律师在法庭上，当着所有人的面，一字一句地读出了这位 OpenAI 总裁在夜深人静时的内心盘算：「这是我们摆脱 Elon Musk 的唯一机会……让我赚到 10 亿美元」，以及「如果三个月后我们做共益企业（b-corp），那就是在撒谎。」
OpenAI 律师团队的辩护是：日记是私人思考的真实流露，里面充满自我怀疑和未经过滤的想法，被断章取义了。
「如果不是马斯克领导，根本没人会加入 OpenAI。而且他们收了他的钱之后又把他踢了出去。这其实挺不公平的。」
Greg Brockman 还分享了 OpenAI 在发布前差点失去 Ilya Sutskever 的完整故事。
Ilya Sutskever 当时在 Google，已经写好了告别邮件，准备跳槽过来。结果当天晚上，他发了一封标题叫「sad news」的邮件给 Brockman：「我太遗憾了。我实在无法离开 Google。」
与此同时，DeepMind 的员工在一场行业会议上挨个找 OpenAI 的潜在招募对象，告诉他们：「没有人会加入 OpenAI 那个实验室。它是一艘沉船。」
Brockman 为 OpenAI 的官网准备了两个版本，一个有 Sutskever，一个没有。他在最后截止时间发出一条消息，只问了一个字：来还是不来。然后他看着消息框里出现了输入提示符，一直跳，一直跳。然后是一个字：「Alright。」
Brockman 给 Altman 发短信：「他来了。」
马斯克说没有他 OpenAI 就不会存在，这话也许不假。但如果 Sutskever 那天晚上没有改变主意，OpenAI 也不会存在。
面对谷歌的财大气粗，奥特曼原本只敢对外宣布 1 亿美元的融资。
但马斯克极力反对，他明白在硅谷，声量就是生命线。他强硬地表示：必须宣布 10 亿美元，否则显得毫无希望。别人不出的钱，我全包了。
尽管后来马斯克实际上只掏了约 3800 万美元，但这句 10 亿美元的虚张声势，也算是帮初生的 OpenAI 稳住了阵脚。
控辩双方争了很多细节，但 Brockman 证词最后归结到一个问题：非营利结构的承诺，究竟是 OpenAI 对外界的法律义务，还是创始人对自己的道德期许？
马斯克律师 Gerrada 在庭上出示了 OpenAI 2015 年向特拉华州提交的注册文件，里面明确写道，
「本公司的具体目的是为人工智能相关技术的研究、开发和分发提供资金……所产生的技术将造福公众，并在适用时寻求开源……本公司不以任何个人的私利为目的。」
然后他问 Brockman：2017 年到 2018 年之间关于营利性结构的讨论，是不是和这份文件的精神相违背？如今你通过营利性实体，坐拥潜在 300 亿美元财富。
Brockman 的回答是：使命本身没有变，只是结构变了。非营利性的使命可以在营利性的结构下继续实现。
Brockman 的证词预计在 5 月底结束，与马斯克育有四个孩子的 Shivon Zilis、OpenAI 前联合创始人，以及奥特曼随后都将出庭作证。
案件的结果会直接影响当前的 AI 军备竞赛。如果马斯克胜诉，正在筹备史上最大规模 IPO 之一、估值高达 7300 亿美元的 OpenAI 可能会遭到毁灭性打击。
如果 OpenAI 胜诉，奥特曼将彻底巩固对这家拥有 4000 多名员工的巨头的控制权。
参考信息
https://www.theverge.com/tech/917225/sam-altman-elon-musk-openai-lawsuit
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Over the last three months I have illustrated a summary of Torquato Tasso’s epic Jerusalem Delivered, concluding that last week. To draw this to a close, this article considers the stories and fate of its six leading characters.
The three leading men are Godfrey of Bouillon, Prince Tancred, and Rinaldo. The leading women are Clorinda the ‘pagan’ knight, Princess Erminia of Antioch, and Armida the sorceress. One fact is immediately apparent: Tasso’s heroes are all crusaders, but the heroines all ‘pagans’, supposedly their enemies.
Godfrey of Bouillon
According to Tasso, the hero of heroes was Godfrey of Bouillon, who led the crusaders to a remarkable victory. Current historical analysis differs: despite the astonishing success of the crusaders at Jerusalem, at no time did they appear to have a single person in overall command, and much of their success was due to Count Raymond of Toulouse rather than Godfrey.
As with Tasso’s poetry, the paintings of Godfrey portray him as a pious warrior, as in this section of Johann Friedrich Overbeck’s magnificent frescoes in the Casa Massimo in Rome. Here The Archangel Gabriel Appears to Godfrey of Bouillon, reminding him of the pressing need to get on with the delivery of the Holy City.
This is reiterated in Overbeck’s Consecration of Godfrey, where Peter the Hermit stands holding the crucifix, as Godfrey, still wearing his armour, sinks on bended knee.
As a pious knight and leader, Godfrey never succumbs to the temptations offered by Armida. As far as we’re told, he remains pure and celibate in both body and mind, his sole mission being to deliver the city.
Tancred and Rinaldo are very different, hot-blooded young knights who fight like there’s no tomorrow, and engage in amorous adventures that get about as explicit as you’ll encounter in literature of this period. But their relationships are each unusual.
Tancred and Clorinda
Clorinda, one of two women warriors featured by Tasso (the other being Gildippe, a crusader), is in love at first sight with Tancred.
Clorinda is portrayed from her arrival as upholding the standards of chivalry, fighting ferociously but fairly, and being morally sound. She first arrives on her charger and holds up her right hand to tell those about to burn Olindo and Sophronia at the stake to hold fire, and quickly secures their release.
She has a vindictive streak, though, which becomes apparent when she decides to torch the wooden siege towers after the first day’s assault on the city walls. This backfires when she is caught outside those walls by Tancred; knowing it’s him, she forces him to fight, resulting in her death.
Predictably perhaps for a Catholic of his age, Tasso ends this part of the story with her baptism in the moments before her death, shown so brilliantly in Domenico Tintoretto’s Tancred Baptizing Clorinda of about 1585. Tasso also provides details of Clorinda’s ‘unfortunate’ upbringing outside the Christian faith of her mother, reinforcing that her sacrifice in battle was to her ultimate benefit in life after death, a thoroughly moralising thread.
Erminia and Tancred
From the outset Erminia is noble, cultured, and in love with Tancred, who had treated her well after the fall of Antioch and the slaughter of the rest of her family. But her love for Tancred isn’t returned: he’s smitten by Clorinda instead.
Mattia Preti’s undated portrait of Erminia, Princess of Antioch expresses well Tasso’s descriptions of her.
This unfortunate threesome doesn’t unravel until after Clorinda’s death. Before that, following the first round of the duel between Tancred and Argante, it becomes more complex. Seeing Tancred wounded in that battle, Erminia leaves the city of Jerusalem wearing Clorinda’s armour. Although that provides her passport to exit the city, she is recognised as Clorinda by crusaders, and is forced to flee from her bid to tend to her beloved Tancred.
That sets up an almost comical situation, in which Tancred leaves the crusaders’ camp in pursuit of a woman he thinks is Clorinda, whom he loves, who is in fact Erminia (who loves him) wearing Clorinda’s armour.
Eugène Delacroix shows this in his Erminia and the Shepherds of 1859, a detail of which I show above. Here is Erminia dressed as Clorinda, with Tancred erroneously in pursuit, heading for trouble in Armida’s magic castle.
Tasso doesn’t develop this confusion any further, but picks up the one-sided relationship again when Argante is dead and Tancred badly wounded, outside Jerusalem. Erminia gets her chance to revive the ailing Tancred, sacrificing her tresses to fabricate improvised bandages.
This is shown best in Alessandro Turchi’s Erminia Finds the Wounded Tancred (c 1630). We are left in suspense over the further development, even consummation, of this relationship.
Armida and Rinaldo
By far the most complex of Tasso’s characters is Armida. The niece of a ‘pagan’ ruler and sorceror Hydrotes, her mission is to wreak havoc in the crusader camp, so destroying command, unity and morale, as she does so effectively.
But Tasso is ambiguous about Armida, and early on reveals some of the complexity of her character. In a lyrical passage about a rose in her garden, Tasso’s poetry inspired Marie Spartali Stillman’s exquisite watercolour of A Rose in Armida’s Garden from 1894.
Having literally seduced many of the crusaders, led them astray, and sold them into slavery, she gets her hands on Rinaldo, who has stormed off under Godfrey’s over-zealous sentence of death. Although Prince Tancred (whom she also imprisons for a while) is one of the crusaders’ finest knights, Tasso repeatedly shows Rinaldo as the most valiant of all. That’s probably the result of Rinaldo being a fictional ancestor of Tasso’s patron.
Armida’s original plan was to beguile Rinaldo and murder him, but she falls in love and devises a more mutually satisfying fate: she abducts him to her enchanted garden, where he becomes her on-call gigolo.
Francesco Hayez in his Rinaldo and Armida from 1812-13 is almost as explicit as Tasso’s lines in depicting their relationship. It’s only Charles and Ubaldo who save Rinaldo from a life of empty pleasure, making love not war, achieved by getting the knight to see himself for what he has become in his self-reflection.
Hell hath no greater fury than Armida spurned: with her lover’s departure, she joins forces with the King of Egypt to exact her vengeance, being promised Rinaldo’s head on a plate, in the manner of John the Baptist’s for Salome (although that reinterpretation didn’t become popular until the late nineteenth century).
The last great battle to secure Jerusalem, which is probably based on the crusaders’ battle at Ascalon, is thus not just between Godfrey and the King of Egypt, representing the forces of God and those of the devil, but a personal feud between Armida and Rinaldo.
That concludes with Armida in despair, trying to take her own life with one of Cupid’s symbolic bolts of love, and her rescue by Rinaldo. He then promises to be her servant and her champion, in the hope that true faith will be revealed and convert her to Christianity.
Armida has often been compared to Circe and other sorceresses who anticipated the more modern concept of the femme fatale. Tasso’s Armida is still more complex, and the fate of her relationship with Rinaldo left open to speculation.
References
Wikipedia on Jerusalem Delivered.
Wikipedia on Torquato Tasso.
Project Gutenberg (free) English translation (Fairfax 1600).
Librivox audiobook of the Fairfax (1600) English translation (free).
Thomas Asbridge (2004) The First Crusade, A New History, Free Press, ISBN 978 0 7432 2084 2.
Anthony M Esolen, translator (2000) Torquato Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered, Gerusalemme Liberata, Johns Hopkins UP. ISBN 978 0 801 863233. A superb modern translation into English verse.
John France (1994) Victory in the East, a Military History of the First Crusade, Cambridge UP. ISBN 978 0 521 589871.
Joanthan Riley-Smith, ed (1995) The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades, Oxford UP. ISBN 978 0 192 854285.
Jonathan Riley-Smith (2014) The Crusades, A History, 3rd edn., Bloomsbury. ISBN 978 1 4725 1351 9.
Johathan Unglaub (2006) Poussin and the Poetics of Painting, Pictorial Narrative and the Legacy of Tasso, Cambridge UP. ISBN 978 0 521 833677.
The crusaders led by Godfrey of Bouillon desperately need Rinaldo back if they are to resume their assault on Jerusalem. Guelph’s party, notably the knights Charles (Carlo) and Ubaldo, have gone in search of him. But Rinaldo has been lured into a trap by the sorceress Armida, who intended to kill him. At the last moment, though, she falls in love with him and abducts him in her chariot.
That flies the couple to the distant, deserted and enchanted Fortunate Isles, where she lives in her garden that is perpetually in Spring. The wizard explains this to Charles and Ubaldo, to aid them in their mission to rescue the knight.
David Teniers the Younger’s The Magician Shows Carlos and Ubaldo the Whereabouts of Rinaldo (The search for Rinaldo) from 1628-30 is a small oil on copper painting in his series telling this section of Tasso’s epic. Here the wizard despatches the two knights to the Fortunate Isles.
At the start of canto fifteen, Charles and Ubaldo set off to retrace their steps with the wizard as their guide. The river takes them gently down to the sea, where a ship awaits. They board, and sail at miraculous speed past Ascalon and the mouths of the River Nile, westward through the Mediterranean, and through the Pillars of Hercules into the Atlantic Ocean. They eventually approach the Fortunate Isles, pull into a harbour, and the two knights disembark.
They spend the night at the foot of the mountain they have to climb to reach Armida’s garden with the captive Rinaldo. They set off at dawn, only to encounter their first obstacle: a fearsome dragon blocking their passage up the mountain. Charles draws his sword ready to slay the dragon, but Ubaldo waves a golden wand, a gift of the wizard, which drives it away.
Poussin’s The Companions of Rinaldo (c 1633-4) shows the two knights confronting this dragon. Charles stands in the centre with his sword ready, but Ubaldo behind him leaves his weapon in its scabbard and brandishes his golden wand instead. In the background at the left is the magic ship in which they sailed, and standing in its prow is the maiden who steered it.
Johann Friedrich Overbeck’s fresco of Ubaldo and Carlo free Rinaldo from Armida’s Castle from 1819-27, in the Casa Massimo, Rome, shows an interesting composite scene. To the right of centre, Charles and Ubaldo wield their sword and wand, and in the distance are Armida and Rinaldo in the garden on the summit. Amorini are playing with Rinaldo’s weapons, and his empty suit of armour has been cast into the undergrowth.
Next the pair have to face a lion, which is similarly dismissed with a wave of the wand. After that comes an army of animals they disperse readily, and Charles and Ubaldo are on the ascent towards the stretch of snow and ice they must cross before reaching Armida’s eternal Spring. Once up at the top, the two knights pause from their strenuous climb, slaking their thirst in a mountain stream. Grassy banks either side of the stream have a fine banquet laid out on them, and there are two naked young women cavorting in the water.
David Teniers the Younger’s Carlos and Ubaldo in The Fortunate Isles (1628-30) shows this moment, with the banquet laid out on a clean white tablecloth rather than grass. Surrounded by trees and standing proud on the skyline is Armida’s palace, their destination.
I only have this monochrome image of Charles-Alexandre Coëssin de la Fosse’s painting of Danish Warriors in the Garden of Armida from 1848. The two knights are dallying rather longer than their mission had intended.
Once Charles and Ubaldo can tear themselves away from these nymphs, they press on to the circular outer wall of the palace, which opens the sixteenth canto as they enter Armida’s garden.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Armida’s garden appeared on all manner of products. This wallpaper designed by Édouard Muller in 1854 is now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, while smaller images appeared on coffee cups and much else.
Tasso gives a brief description of the garden with its figs, apples and grape vines. Birds sing, and the wind murmurs softly. One bird speaks to the two knights, telling of the chaste and modest rose flower that springs virgin from its green leaves.
This passage about the rose was the inspiration for Marie Spartali Stillman’s exquisite watercolour of A Rose in Armida’s Garden from 1894, given by the artist as a wedding gift to a family friend.
Charles and Ubaldo then peer through the leaves and spot a loving couple, who they presume to be Rinaldo and Armida. The knight’s head rests in Armida’s lap. He then stands up and takes a crystal glass hanging at his side. Armida uses this as a mirror to adjust her hair, telling Rinaldo to keep looking into her eyes.
Tiepolo paints this clearly in his Rinaldo and Armida in Her Garden from 1742-45, now in The Art Institute of Chicago. It was originally hung in a special room dedicated to Tasso’s epic in the Palazzo Corner a San Polo in Venice, where it belonged to the noble Serbelloni family.
In Angelica Kauffman’s Rinaldo and Armida from 1771, the crystal glass is ready at Armida’s feet, and she is busy distracting him by sprinkling flowers over his head.
Francesco Hayez shows a variation in his Rinaldo and Armida from 1812-13. Anticipating the next part of Tasso’s narrative, instead of Rinaldo wearing the crystal glass at his side, his circular shield rests on the ground next to Armida. Charles and Ubaldo are shown peering from behind a tree trunk, safely in the distance.
Armida then kisses Rinaldo goodbye and leaves. Charles and Ubaldo see their opportunity and step out from the bushes, dressed in full armour. Ubaldo holds a highly polished shield up so that Rinaldo can see himself for what he has become, a woman’s dandy, not a warrior knight.
References
Wikipedia on Jerusalem Delivered.
Wikipedia on Torquato Tasso.
Project Gutenberg (free) English translation (Fairfax 1600).
Librivox audiobook of the Fairfax (1600) English translation (free).
Thomas Asbridge (2004) The First Crusade, A New History, Free Press, ISBN 978 0 7432 2084 2.
Anthony M Esolen, translator (2000) Torquato Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered, Gerusalemme Liberata, Johns Hopkins UP. ISBN 978 0 801 863233. A superb modern translation into English verse.
John France (1994) Victory in the East, a Military History of the First Crusade, Cambridge UP. ISBN 978 0 521 589871.
Joanthan Riley-Smith, ed (1995) The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades, Oxford UP. ISBN 978 0 192 854285.
Jonathan Riley-Smith (2014) The Crusades, A History, 3rd edn., Bloomsbury. ISBN 978 1 4725 1351 9.
Johathan Unglaub (2006) Poussin and the Poetics of Painting, Pictorial Narrative and the Legacy of Tasso, Cambridge UP. ISBN 978 0 521 833677.
这辆上个世纪的面包车（Toyota Hiace SBV Manual, 1999, Petrol 2.4 Litre），闲置两年后，似乎油耗又增加了……曾经还偶尔在高速上跑出百公里<11L 的油耗，如今直逼 14L。在 van 之前，我开惯了 1.2L 排量、百公里6L 的小车，如今每次想到耗油量这件事，钱包和良心都在痛。再加上俄罗斯入侵乌克兰后，油价涨了超过 60%，以至于平常不太舍得在城市间随意开长途游玩。
| 日期 | 加油（升） | 公里数 | 百公里油耗 | 行驶场合 |
| Sep 28 | 39.85 | 319 | 12.49 | 长途高速 |
| Oct 5 | 43.75 | 347 | 12.61 | 长途+市区 |
| Oct 31 | 46.72 | 336 | 13.90 | 市区 |
| Nov 13 | 43.48 | 311 | 13.98 | 市区，略堵 |
ps，耗油量似乎是和车速或发动机转速有关的，刚拿到车时，曾经在野外欢乐地飙车到 140+km/h，却很快就没油了，差点抛锚在野外。算了算，耗油量似乎达到了 16~20 升。于是后来基本都把转速控制在 3000 以内，车速也很少超过 100km/h。
关于耗油量影响良心的自我调解思路，主要有三种：
1、是系统的错：市场上并不存在排量和油耗更低的产品，能够让我牺牲马力和速度，而拥有同样的厢体空间。 ——其实有些自欺欺人了。最新款 Hiace 的油耗号称低于 9L/100km，但需要花几万刀换车。而且主要的问题并不是经济上是否划算，而是我还不能确定，未来几年甚至几个月，还会用这辆车在这里生活多久。
2、大家都这样：这个油耗，对于家用车很高，但对于那些成天开着 SUV 买菜还洋洋自得的，也就那么回事……
3、住在 van 里，开的距离会更少。和同样生活方式而住在房子里的我自己相比，住在车里，不存在 “从家往返目的地” 这回事，而是直接在每个目的地睡觉，所以少了很多往返里程。
1 2 这种理由，是无法说服我的良心的；所以能够勉强自我安慰的也只有第 3 个理由。但就像 “因为我穷，所以即使什么都不做，也比住豪宅的人环保” 一样，仍然是一种自欺欺人。毕竟，在我的词典里，当大家都抵制消费一件东西时，如果这个东西我本来就不会消费，或者抵制了也不会影响日常舒适性，那么这对我而已算不上真正的 “抵制”，至少不应该因此把自己放在道德高处去审视别人。
展开讲讲 · 81 · 脱口秀英雌传：女性如何用笑声改写叙事
这一期播客，我很喜欢。梳理最近几年（2017 – ）大陆女性在脱口秀节目中的脉络和演变。
我并不是一个日常去 fo 脱口秀综艺节目的听众。经常是一些精彩段子传到网上了，我才专门去视频网站看看。所以节目里谈的这些成体系的脉络，大多对我是很陌生的。我也并不知道主播们说的内容是否正确，有没有遗漏或偏颇。但是从这种时间脉络的整理视角中，可以看出，行业、演员、听众、社会环境……的各种时间上的演变，在性别状况领域的一种积极的生长。也能很开心地感受到，当主播们梳理出这些变化时，表现出的兴奋和激情。
最让我感触的点，首先当然是杨笠说的（1:11:50）：不需要掌声，不需要笑声，只要大家还在说，
现在这个场子里，有多少伤口正在悄悄愈合，这是血肉正在疯长的声音。
以及说这话的杨笠本人，已经坐在评审席上，让新的演员们觉得有人 “罩” 着，让演员们确信，她们的段子背后的的内涵，评审席上是有人能够理解的，从而形成时间上的代际氛围。
这不是我走的路。但我很开心，看着这一条路被人们越走越通畅。
我最近接触到的一些，走其它路的人。和我的路、和脱口秀或成为网红的路，都不相同，却也是同一个目标，甚至更加努力投入的人。他们的路走的并不顺畅，无论物质还是情绪价值上，都算不上 “成功” 或者仅仅是自洽。我隐约能看到他们的痛苦、茫然、甚至面对那些成功路上的人，会有一些冷眼、批判（很多批判我是很赞同的）、嫉妒。对此我也还不知道如何去剖析和面对，当然也可能都只是我的错觉。总之替人家开心就好。
另一个点（52:30），当女脱口秀演员们，担心自己编成段子的悲惨人生，观众们听了会更偏向心疼难受，而影响演出效果。鲁豫作为评审，说：
你今年讲，其实就比你去年讲、前年讲，要好很多。大家可能还会心疼，但氛围已经好了非常多。观众的接受度和边界，也在被你们一次一次地讲这些话题当中，被拓宽。
我在之前很长一段时间，都困扰于如何和大家的幽默感兼容的问题。这些年几乎每一次聊天讲笑话抖包袱的时候，我都会审视，这是不是一个站在传统男性视角，让女性听着不适的油腻段子。有些笑话被我审查掉了；但有些我觉得还可以说。因为我确实有不少女性朋友，甚至是一直在性别领域努力着的朋友，能够毫不顾忌地互相指出反思不足的朋友，我们之间可以开心地享受一些，表面看起来看是地狱笑话的地狱笑话。
但也有一些时候，我自以为的幽默，仍然会让对方感到不适或反感。其中一些大概是因为大家还不熟，还没有度过性别身份造成的防备。而另一些场景，也只能说，幽默感这个事情，在不同地域、时代、不同个体、不同经历前后，都是不一样的。——如果说性别方面的幽默感隔阂，我没有判断的权利；那么，当我调笑几句哥伦比亚大学运动中的学生，就因此被人归类到警察那一边，甚至被归到香港警察那一边，我觉得这真的不是我这边的幽默感问题了……
当然，在这样的时候，我通常会让步、乃至道歉。尤其在性别场合，我觉得我应当让步，也不介意让步。但我内心始终有一个声音：不是的，大家对幽默的态度不应该是这个样子的。而且，这种关于语言的自我审视，其实和在大陆社交网络下，每一句话都要进行敏感词的自我审视，二者在形式上是很类似的。这确实让我很难受。但如今这个氛围，当大家在性别、政治、阶层、生活方式…等多个维度都需要用三观来寻找同温层的时候，这种纯语言上的不兼容，显然不应该成为权重过大的妨碍社交连接的因素。所以我通常继续在让步；而也有一些时候，确实单纯因为和一些人的语言方式及幽默感上的不兼容而渐行渐远。
所以，当我看到这样一种趋势：有越来越多的人，对着越来越多的，原先的感受更偏向于伤痛、提防的东西，如今可以更多用笑的态度去面对了。我对此非常非常开心。当然，那种关于自我言论油腻性的日常审视，还是要继续（摊手
膝盖骨乐队 Kneecap，8.5/10
评分给高了一点，是因为我部分地代入了音乐教师 Dj Próvai 的角色，于是它似乎成为了对我而言最好的中年电影之一。
不再是那种俗套的中年电影：在生活压力或者虚无中产生情绪，寄情于（事业 or 自然 or 某种兴趣爱好 or 性爱）之中，最终（成功 or 不成功）的故事。
而是，在碌碌生活中，仍然坚信自己的某些想法是对的（譬如怎样普及爱尔兰语），尽管无力去做什么，却仍然保持着心底的理念，不让屁股决定自己的脑袋。然后，某一天，恰逢其会，遇到了更有天赋和激情的小朋友们，就可以随时行动起来，为他们提供支持，用自己的经验和技术，让那些 idea 更有机会实现。
同时，一方面，在社群中维持某种程度而又不喧宾夺主的 ego；另一方面，在自己原有的社会连接中，纠结而微妙地平衡着，和各种被动或主动地岁月静好的人们、为你好但理念非常不兼容的人们、以及用非无政府主义的态度搞事情的人们，或者试探、或者坦承、若即若离。
以及，经常遇到小朋友们听不懂年代梗的尴尬。
：我这个录音棚比不上 Abbey Road 啦。
：Abbey 啥玩意？
：……
：大家看啊，Roland 808 鼓机！
：这是啥？看着像 80 年代的垃圾？
：……是我们要用来录音的设备。
（Update，才发现这两个梗都被放到官方预告片里了 lol
《出走的决心》，8/10
看片一向不及时的我，最近才终于看了《出走的决心》。两周前的大年夜，电影的原型，苏敏阿姨官宣离婚。我原以为，在这个消息的鼓舞下，电影会看得更心旷神怡一些。但，仍然看的很憋气。尤其是一些家务的场景，联想到之前《好东西》里，被大家盛赞的那段，妈妈家务劳动时的各种音效。对比之下，是不一样的感受。
电影最触动我的一个镜头，是阿姨刚买了户外帐篷，在屋里支起来的时候。作为住过上千次帐篷的人，也很多次在屋里给别人搭起，当作有趣的行为或景致。然而，看到电影里的画面，才第一次意识到，原来这个场景，在意象上，可以成为「一间只属于女性自己的房间」。
憋气的场景看多了（这里感谢姜武的爹味演绎^^），以至于会觉得，这算不算是电影不足的地方？——电影把生活环境描写得过于极端了，很多典型的生活困境，和典型的油腻男气息，都集中在一起。在我的想象里，这会让一些观影的人，因为自己并没有这么惨，而为自己找一些不出走的理由？譬如，很多家里老公会做饭，会给老婆打伞，多数家庭至少言语和睦，偶尔也能一起出去旅行，躺在床上刷手机的当然也不止是老公，女人也很多……于是，人们把电影和自己的现实一对比，哦，原来我没有那么惨，所以我没有出走，也是 ok 的。
但是，当我和别人说起这个想法时，发现对方的回应是：她老公已经算不错了，没有酗酒、家暴、吸毒、赌博、传销、网贷……虽然我觉得对方大概也是在开玩笑嘲讽，但每个人的认知底线也确实不同吧。我确实不擅长去想象别人的边界感。
现实中，我也会给身边困住庸碌生活中的人，家人、朋友、爱人，提供安慰，或者带他们玩各种有趣的东西。——这当然不是为了让他们更好地做牛做马；但是这些行为，会不会也为他们的各种意义上的「不出走」，加了一把力呢？我不知道。回想起来，很多次我带他们体验有趣事物的时候，真的在以一种希冀的目光看着他们, 希望他们突然说出, 不, 这样不够, 我还要更嗨。
然而并没有。
然后我发现就这么看电影时把自己看哭了。然后开始反思，我确实容易陷入这种「沉默的羔羊」式的自我感动，从起初想要不顾一切带着羊离开，到后来淡然着，看着羊们一次次地，偶尔露出些不清晰的对离开的憧憬，但很快又缩回去。——也可以理解成，被无形的文化之手抓了回去。而我对自己的淡然状态，是否应该又罪恶感呢？是否只是在享受廉价的自我感动呢？仍然不清楚。
讨论《一部未完成的电影》，朋友说，前面那些冗长的，十年前的回顾，是有意义的，是把当年那些美好的日子，和如今（片中的 2020 年）相对照；就像片尾曲，用了邵夷贝李志的《黄昏》，同样是让人回想曾经美好的时光。
笑。我突然意识到一件事情。对我来说，十几年前，并不是什么美好的过去，那时的我，已经确定这个体系无可救药，所谓「历史的垃圾时间」，早在那之前，就已经开始。然而，更年轻的人，或者「觉醒」的时间更后面一些的人，每个人都有各自认知中的「过去的美好时光」。十几年前，或者几年前，对他们来说，和更后面的日子相比，可能仍然是美好的，充满希望的。
而当对「美好时光」的时间点，有着相似的认知的人，彼此相遇，或者很多相似的人成为主流，他们之间的共鸣会更强一些。譬如导演认为 2010 年美好，而安排了这样的情节，那些同样认为 2010 年美好的人，就能感受到这一点。
这样的时间错乱的例子还有很多。
譬如，有人认为，新浪微博刚开始的氛围，也是很美好的。但对我而言，新浪微博出现的背景，是民间各种自建 twitter 网站被审查、夭折，然后大鳄们在尸横遍野中进场，之后的明星进驻，和原本的互联网风格相比，也很走偏。而且审查一直存在（限流和 shadow ban 大概是后来的新发明了……）。所以从来就不是什么好东西。
譬如，有《好东西》的粉丝，根据小孩的年龄，推算铁梅放弃做记者时，到底发生了什么？算出来是在 2014~15 年，「中国调查报导从初冬转向严寒」。——但那个时间点，真的没什么特别显著的事，中国新闻在那之前很多年，之后很多年，一直是严寒。
譬如，朋友说厌恶春节，因为当年武汉疫情时，万家宴的歌舞升平，给了他很大冲击。我想了想，类似的反差感里，让我冲击最强的，还是 2008 年汶川地震后，山东作协主席王兆山的诗，之后就大多是麻木了。
说这些，不是在倚老卖老，也不是在为自己的麻木做辩解；而是说，如果大家只是因为在觉醒的时间节拍上不搭，或者觉醒的姿势不大一样，而无法深切共情，是件完全可以理解的事情，不要因此而影响彼此的同温关系。
经常有人，很认真地问我：是什么时候、什么事情，让你的性别意识、或者反贼意识，觉醒的？问话的人，眼里闪着光芒，大概期待着我说出一些事件，然后说「呀，我也是」或者「我知道那个」，在共鸣中进一步增进友情。然而对我来说，确实不存在某个明确的觉醒时刻，就是从一开始就怀着最朴素的正义感，在各种事件熏陶中，一点点加深认识。但这样的说法，似乎经常让对方不满意？我也不知道要怎样处理这些。
跟女孩子骑了一程重型摩托车，渐渐发现，每次她在红灯路口停下来时，动作都很一致：左脚撑地，右脚踩住刹车，——但这样的姿势，如果离合器在空档位，是没有办法直接从静态起步的，所以这段时间，其实是挂在一档，左手要一直捏住离合器。感觉手很累。
相比之下，我的动作则散漫很多。停车时我通常会右脚撑地，离合器挂在空档，左手完全松开，启动时用左脚踩进一档，然后直接前进。——但这种姿势和地形有关，如果停在斜坡上，车子前后溜动，缓一点的坡，可以勉强用脚撑住；陡一点的坡，就需要用右手捏住刹车，而捏久了觉得累，就也切换成右脚踩刹车，左脚踩地的姿势，但此时已经是空档了，启动时需要先换成右脚踩地，未免手忙脚乱。
但女生骑重机的最大问题在于，240kg 的摩托车，倒了是真的扶不起来。而任何车身的不稳、摇晃、倾斜、甚至一阵强风吹来，也都会导致撑不住，而最终倒下。所以，我的那些（勉强用脚撑住、换脚踩地、手忙脚乱）的情景，对她们而言，是完全不允许出现的状况。于是，这种停车时，手一直捏住一档离合的姿势，大概是适用于所有情况的统一最优解？我这种野路子出身，并不知道这样的姿势，是对方长年骑车的自我经验总结，还是经过了一套「女生如何骑重机」的专门学习培训？回头问问去。
另一方面，这种容错率很低的，对远超自己体重的机械驾驭，在骑行过程中，是否在精神上也是一种时刻紧绷的状态，当心自己随时会翻倒？——大概是的。虽然不同人在精神紧绷程度上存在差别，但应该不会像我那样散漫放松。而我也时常会忽视这种差别，停车时发现对方后座行李歪了，顺手扶了一把，却给对方造成了惊吓。
对方骑重机的效果，确实是非常的帅！对车子的驾驭技术也比我好，为了能骑上这么帅的重机，所付出的努力，也肯定比我多。——那么，设身处地，从我个人的角度，换做我是那个体重轻的女生，我是否愿意为了骑重机，而投身到更多的规则和努力之中？
从这个角度分析下去，其实和「女性生存状况」、以及「在日本生活的方式」，其思路上都有些隐喻的成分。当然，首先要批判的是环境因素：
在承认这一点的基础上，从文化规训、以及个人选择的维度上，
待续。
标题致敬 David Graeber 《规则的悖论》，但目前想写的这些，大概和书里的内容没什么关系。
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