4 ms·

> Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

• taneq 4y ago
  Huh, I always figured the Banks novel was named for a quote. Pardon my ignorance of the classics, but where’s it from?
  • jamesgreenleaf 4y ago
    It's from T. S. Eliot's "The Wasteland": IV. Death by Water Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead, Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell And the profit and loss. A current under sea Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell He passed the stages of his age and youth Entering the whirlpool. Gentile or Jew O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you. I get Phlebas mixed up with those lines from Shakespeare's "The Tempest", where we get the idiom "sea change": Full fathom five thy father lies, Of his bones are coral made, Those are pearls that were his eyes, Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change, into something rich and strange, Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell, Ding-dong. Hark! now I hear them, ding-dong, bell.
    • dredmorbius 4y ago
      I'd just realised that "The Tempest" is where the phrase "sea-change" must come from. Wikipedia confirms: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_change_(idiom) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_change_(idiom)>
    • jz391 4y ago
      So another Banks' novel - "Look to Windward" - title came from this poem