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This section was published for the first time in issue No. 10 ( December 1991 ) of PANTA RHEI. It contains excerpts from literature (prose or poems) where water is the source or muse of the author/poet. Why call it fractals ?
"Fractal mathematics offer a natural way to describe irregular patterns if they contain fine structure that is encountered repeatedly over a range of spatial and temporal scales" (P. Meakin, in Bras, R., EOS, Vol. 7 No. 2).
Is literature not the elegant description of the irregular pattern of human life, containing facets encountered repeatedly all over the world and time after time ?
* Contents
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| No.20 - June 1994 |
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| No.17 - September 1993 |
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| No.15 - March 1993 |
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| No.12 - June 1992 |
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| No.10 - December 1991 |
* Latest Fractal - February 1997
The Fractal of February 1997 is a citation in Michel Tournie's "Le Miroir des Idees", Collection Folio, Mercure de France, 1996, p.83-84
DE L'EAU
" ... Elle est blanche et brillante, informe et fraiche, passive et obstinee dans son seul vice: la pesanteur; disposant de moyenrs exceptionnels pour satisfaire ce vice: contournant, transpercant, erodant, filtrant ... "" Le Parti pris des choses " Francis PONGE
* Electronic Fractal - January 1997
The Fractal of January 1997 is taken from UNESCO Sources No.84, November 1996 :
"Water thou hast no taste, no colour, no odours; cannot be defined, and relished
while even mysterious. Not necessary to life, but rather life itself ..."
Antoine de SAINT-EXUPERY in "Wind, Sand and Stars", ("Terres des Hommes", Paris, 1939).
* First electronic Fractal - March 1996
The Fractal of the first electronic PANTA RHEI (March 1996) is taken from L'EAU VIVE by Jean GIONO :
"..on ne peut, je crois, rien connaître par la simple science. C'est un instrument trop exact et trop dur. Le monde a mille tendresses dans lesquelles il faut se plier pour les comprendre avant de savoir ce que représente leur somme."
* PANTA RHEI No.21/22 - December 1994
'Tis that which makes the great Difference in Mankind: The little, and almost
insensible impressions on our tender infancies, have very important and lasting
Consequences: And there 'Tis , as in the fountains of some Rivers, where a gentle
Application of the Hand turns the flexible Waters into Channels, that makes them
quite contrary Courses, and by this little Direction given them at first in the
Source, they receive different Tendencies, and arrive at last, at very remote
distant places.
John LOCKE "Some Thoughts concerning Education" p. 83, in J. W. Yolton and J. S. Yolton, 1898, Clandeston, Oxford.
* PANTA RHEI No.20 - June 1994
An excellent book of "fractals" (a "livre de chevet") is "LE NOZZE DI CADMO E ARMONIA"
by Roberto CALASSO, director of the famous Adelphi Edizioni, Milano.
In the French translation by Editions Gallimard, 1991, the story of Olympia (Peloponesos, Greece) and it's river Alpheos, a wonderful fractal, goes as follows (pp. 179-182) :
" Ce lieu est le don d'un homme qui devient un fleuve, Alphee (...). ... Pausanias rend
au moins trois fois hommage a l'Alphee :<
Alphee etait (un chasseur), qui, un jour, <
Alphee et Arethuse : eau avec eau, source qui jaillit de la terre, courant qui remonte des profondeurs marines, rencontre de deux lymphes qui ont voyage longtemps, approche erotique extreme, perennite heureuse, absense de remparts sur le monde, paroles gargouillantes".
* PANTA RHEI No.18/19 - March 1994
Ref.: Guy de MAUPASSANT : "DES VERS"
Nouvelle Edition avec un portrait de l'auteur grave a l'eau-forte par Le Rat
Paris, Librairie Paul Ollendorff, 28 bis, rue de Richelieu, 1899, 214 pp.
* PANTA RHEI No.17 - September 1993
" ... Water equals time and provides beauty its doubles. Part water, we serve
beauty in the same fashion ... "
Joseph BRODSKY in WATERMARK, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1992, p. 134.
* PANTA RHEI No.16 - June 1993
The Drop of Water
A Fairy Tale by Hans Christian ANDERSON
I suppose you know what a magnifying glass is - a sort of round eye-glass that makes
everything a hundred times bigger than it is ? If you take it and hold in front
of you and look at a drop of water out of the pond, you can see any number of
strange-looking creatures that you would otherwise never see in the water; yet
sure enough, there they are. It looks rather like a plateful of shrimps hopping
about among each other; and they are so ferocious that they tear off each other's
arms and legs, buttocks and thighs though, in spite of that, they are quite pleased
and cheerful in their own way.
Now there was once an old man whom everybody called Creepy-Crawly, because that
was his name. He always would have the best of everything and, if other means
failed, then ho got what he wanted by magic.
Well, one day he sat holding his magnifying glass in front of him and looking at
a drop of water that came from a puddle in the ditch. Goodness, what a lot of
creeping and crawing there was ! Hundreds of little creatures were all hopping
around and tugging at each other and eating each other.
"Really it's quite repulsive," said old Creepy-Crawly. "Can't they be made to
live in peace and quiet and to mind their own business ?" and he puzzled and
puzzled, but it all came to nothing, and so he was forced to use magic. " I
must colour them to make them stand out more clearly," he said; and he poured the
merest drop of red wine into the drop of water. But it was witch's blood, the
very finest kind at twopence a drop. Then all those weird little creatures turned
pink all over; they might have been a whole townful of naked savages.
"What have you got there ?" asked another old magician who hadn't got a name -
and that was just what made him so distinguished. "Well, if you can guess what
it is," said Creepy-Crawly, "I'll make you a present of it. But is isn't easy to
find out, if you don't know."
And the magician who hadn't got a name took a peep through the magnifying glass.
It looked exactly like a whole town where everybody was running about without
anything on. It was horrible; but still more horrible was the sight of people
pushing and elbowing each other, wrestling and wrangling, snapping and snarling.
Those at the bottom should be on top, and those at the top should be down at the
bottom. "Look there ! His leg is longer than mine. Pooh ! Away with it ! And
here's a chap with a little pimple behind his ear; a harmless little pimple,
but it hurts him, and it shall hurt him still more." And they slashed at it and
pulled him about and then they ate him for the sake of the pimple. Another was
sitting there as still as any maiden might, wanting nothing but peace and quiet;
but the maiden had to come forward and be pulled and tugged, till finally they
ate her right up ! "That's extremely funny," said the magician.
"Yes, but what do you make of it all ?" asked Creepy-Crawly. "Have you any idea
what it is ?", "It's plain enough," said the other. "It must be Copenhagen or
some other big city, for they're all alike. A big city, anyway.", "It's ditch-water,"
said Creep-Crawly.
Ref.: FAIRY TALES, Volume 1 by H.C. ANDERSON, translated from the original Danish text by R. P. Keigwin. Published by Hans Reitzels Forlag, Flensteds Forlag, Odense, Denmark, 1986, pp. 253-256.
* PANTA RHEI No.15 - March 1993
"Clear and bright it should be ever, Flowing like a crystal river"
Alfred, Lord TENNYSON 1809-1892
Ref.: Proceedings Conference "River Water Quality Ecological Assessment and Control", Brussels, December 1991
* PANTA RHEI No.14 - December 1992
" Venus (...) fend les airs legers sur son char attele de colombes et descend
sur le rivage de Laurente, ou, cache sous les roseaux, le fleuve du Numicius
conduit ses eaux en serpentant a la mer voisine. Elle lui ordonne de laver
tout ce qui chez Enee est soumis a la mort et d'emporter cette depouille vers
le large dans son cours silencieux ; le fleuve au front arme de cornes execute
les orders de Venus ; il l'arrose, de tout ce qu'il y avait en lui de mortal ;
il ne lui laisse que la meilleure partie de lui meme. "
Ref.: Les Metamorphoses d'OVIDE, Livre XIV, 12
* PANTA RHEI No.12 - June 1992
Ref.: Livre huitieme - Fable 23 de LA FONTAINE, Production Prosveta, Beograd, 1900 p. 300.
* PANTA RHEI No.11 - March 1992
" In their loneliness, in their dream of love or lack of it, the lost are ever
drifting to the water's edge. In the immense drift of night the whistling agony
of the tormented is muffled by the lap-lap of even the tiniest stream. The mind,
emptied of all but the lapping of waves, grows tranquil. Rolling with the waters
, the spirit that was harried folds its wings.
The waters of the earth ! Leveling, sustaining, comforting. Baptismal waters !
Next to light, the most mysterious element of creation. Everything passes away in
time. The water abide. "
February-April 1957, Big Sur, California
Ref.: "THE WORLD OF SEX" by Henry MILLER, Grove Press, Inc., New York 1965, p.124.
* PANTA RHEI No.10 - December 1991
" Weisst Du noch von Rom, liebe Lou ? Wie ist es in Deiner Erinnerung ? In Meiner
werden einmal nur seine Wasser sein, diese klaren kostlichen bewegten Wasser, die
auf seiner Platzen leben ; seiner Treppen, die nach dem Vorbild fallender Wasser
erbaut, so seltsam Stufe aus Stufe schieben wie Welle aus Welle ... "
Rilke an Lou Andreas-Salome, Rom, Via del Campidoglio 5, am dritten November 1905
Ref.: Rainer Maria RILKE - Lou ANDREAS-SALOME BRIEFWECHSEL. Max Niehaus Verlag AG, Zurich und Insel Verlag Wiesbaden, 1952, p. 114.
