II : LIII In Ruins

...
THOMASINA: (To Septimus) How is a ruined child different from a ruined castle?
SEPTIMUS: On such question I defer to Mr. Noakes
NOAKES: (Out of his depth) A ruined castle is picturesque, certainly.
...

Arcadia, Act I, Scene i. Tom Stoppard.

Since as early as 18th century and evolved well into 1920s, picturesque style has been the star of European gardening. Landscape designers recreates nature from the early emulation of landscape painters such as Salvatore Rosa, Poussin and Claude Lorraine, decorating manors with gazebos and other allegorical artifacts, presenting gardens as though a highly manipulated stage scenery, to the later Romantic manifestation of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's influences, reflected by a wilder and more realistic approach. Early in the first act of Stoppard's Arcadia, Lady Croom, young Thomasina's mother, couldn't understand the appeal of having her garden look "ruined", while Mr. Noakes convinced her of the picturesque nature of what he's doing. In the mean time, the hostess was worried about her daughter being exposed to the notions of sex too early and questioned the tutor-student duo in scrutiny. The quite witty Thomasina took the literal meaning of "ruin" and redirected the question to Spetimus, who then aimed the arrow towards the architect.

The Omnipotent Magician Jane Brown

Chatto, pp.384, 20

• THIS article comments on the style of Capability Brown from Guardian, a design with details down to "the right amount of sheep tastefully arranged" that Lady Croom much liked. 
• In Arcadia Stoppard discussed the augmented layers of designs from the perspective of Hannah Jarvis, revealing that the evolution of styles is never from the scratches, but is always influenced by our predecessors.

The wordplay never fails to put smiles on our face, and also makes us think about the deliberate "ruined" state that was popular with English gardening in early 19th century, which was supposed to reflect a sense of transiency in life.       

 
The real problem is: nothing lasts forever. Ancient cities, states, the glories of human inventions and accomplishments, hundreds of years of cultures, all burned down to ashes when disasters fell. Zeus' thunder is a metaphor here but the Greeks' view of life and religion is metaphorical to begin with. Nothing survives the wheel of life, not the plays by Sophocles, not the fountains of Troy, not the philosophers in the school of Athens.

Septimus: We shed as we pick up, like travellers who must carry everything in their arms, and what we let fall will be picked up by those behind. The procession is very long and life is very short. We die on the march. But there is nothing outside the march so nothing can be lost to it. The missing plays of Sophocles will turn up piece by piece, or be written again in another language. Ancient cures for diseases will reveal themselves once more. Mathematical discoveries glimpsed and lost to view will have their time again. You do not suppose, my lady, that if all of Archimedes had been hiding in the great library of Alexandria, we would be at a loss for a corkscrew?

Arcadia, Act I, Scene iii

 

Like Sisyphus' labour uphill, the process of human society might seem like pointless efforts that bound to end with doom. However, I believe each time Sisyphus pushed the rock uphill, his strategy evolves. There might not be happily ever after on the horizon, but our efforts are never for nothing, for ruins are the evidences of experience. Our life is merely a small segment of history, yet without each link, the chain would never be formed. Prometheus gave his children a sparkle of creation, with which we invent flashlights, so that we'll never be afraid of the oncoming storm.

II : I - VI In Ruins

People call it the cradle of western civilization, Athens, the city named after the goddess of wisdom. There is a constellation of temples dedicated to her, or at least carrying her title. The Parthenon is probably the one that attracts most attention. I remember visting the "fake Parthenon" in Nashville in the summer of 2012. Although it is almost impossible to imagine what it would be like to see the Parthenon in Socrate's time, or even in Byron's, with the newly constructed temple in front of my eyes, sitting amidst the lawns beautifully laid out and all those greeneries in the Mecca of American country music. Of course, I did catch glimpses of the past glory and was given the opportunity to visualize the scale of the worship Athena had. 

Being a Pagan temple, the Parthenon represents values that the Christian church wouldn't approve. After 900 years of its time being a shrine for the votaries of Athena, the Parthenon was transformed into a Christian church dedicated to the Virgin, although ironically Athena was actually one of the only three virgin goddesses in Greek mythology.

painting of the Parthenon ruin

In 1456, the Turks turned the Parthenon into a mosque, only to be destroyed yet again after 231 years by the Venetian crusaders.

Mosque inside Parthenon - the evidence of its Turkish past is now gone as well

Layers and layers of changes: generations of rulers and robbers adding new trophies of their victories and ripping off evidences of past glories of their enemies. In 1806, the last of the Turkish mosque on the original ruin was finally removed, giving the site its Greek origin, although a mere graveyard of what was once the most beautiful of ancient architecture and the epitome of arts. In 1816, several years after Byron's steps onto this piece of soil, the Parthenon marbles were sold to British Museum in London.

I wondered for about an hour in the Nashville Parthenon, most of which spent looking up at it from afar. There isn't any spirit around that structure. I can only imagine the haunting air Byron must have felt at the site of conflicts for centuries past. Standing in front of a ruin with several zeroes on her age, one can only stay silent in awe, and sigh over the tempest of fate: who would have thought, those constructors who originally designed and built the Parthenon, that future tenants of this building will have a completely belief system?

In short, power decides culture, religion, and belief.

Parthenon was one of the chief examples of architectures featuring Doric orders. Another great example was Temple of Zeus in Olympia with the same striking characters. By the time Byron visits the site, the temple of Zeus, although finally identified during the 18th century, was still in the state of partial burial due to the destruction in 426 CE and the subsequent earthquakes in 522 and 551 CE.

Ruins of the Temple of Zeus Olympio

There's one thing you'll realize indubitably if you see the ruins of a lost civilization, that eternity doesn't exists. Time and space shrink into one spot when you stand in front of a ruin, especially a ruin of a society you have known so well in your head. When Canto ii of Childe Harold was written, Byron was barely 25 years old, an age of great expectations and hopes. All his childhood had been spent having an endless longing of the Greek culture, thus the almost unreasonable sympathy the poet had for this land. His fateful fight during the Greek independence war was unavoidable if you think about how much influence this culture had on him.

The destruction of something beautiful is the roots of tragedy. The ruined temples of ancient Greece are proofs. Childe Harold saw an empty shell, unoccupied, abandoned by the gods who supposed to bestow blessings onto a city that needed them the most. The words are with sorrow, yet also with distain: for the human-like gods of Olympia understandably left the shattered houses once built for them, yet neglected and unrecovered. 

I remember a trip to the Forbidden Palace in Beijing back in high school with all my buddies. There was an exhibition room in which you can see all the past images of the palace, different from each dynasties. Emperors had this habit of burning down everything from the last kingdom and rebuild their own on top of the original site. Thus the Forbidden Palace became a site of blood and tears of generations as well as glories and wealth. It's a surreal and indescribable sight, for you have no idea whether to sigh in melancholy or in awe.

Arch of Hadian

I'm in no position imagining if it'd be the same looking at the Greek ruins, but the trip ti the Forbidden Palace would be the closest thing I can think of to embody an experience like that. It's pointless to recreate ancient sights, at least I don't think it necessary. The ruins are the evidence of what human beings are capable of and premonitions of what could happen if we don't respect what is sacred and succumb to the desire of power.