The Constantinople of the East
In the less enlightened past, before the invention of what could even charitably called “science,” “evidence-based thought,” or indeed, “measurement of any degree of exactitude,” there was developed a rather compellingly maniacal doctrine of thought. It should surprise no one that this doctrine was forged within the crucible of the west, where economic competition, brutal warfare, and periodic bouts of plague proved to be the necessary base elements of the modern world. The doctrine held as such: European society was formed in such a way that it resembled a rigidly constructed pyramid: to each his own proper place, with a function immutable, eternal, and clear to all: there was a king, there were nobles, and priests, and soldiers, and merchants, and horses, and carriage makers, and peasants, and criminals, and infidels, and jews, and women, and whores, and lepers, and lions, and spiders, and all manner of roles and beasts.
Since society was ordered thus, the congnesetti “reasoned,” so too must be all the realms of the heavens, hells, and earth, including beneath the waves. “So above, below,” was the deceptively simple maxim that led to one of the most incredibly prolific explosions of conjecture and madness in all of human history. The cached and shadowed vagaries of under-sea life, be they scuttlers, swimmers, or, like, floaters, were dredged up in thick-tarred hempen ropes, left on decks to rot and be sketched by barbers, chaplains, or cooks, and thrust into rigid societal castes at near random. Thus, our language is still bequeathed with “Sword-fish,” “lion-fish,” “Sea-horse,” “toad-fish,” and “monk-fish,” the latter named not from piety, certainly, but from the assumption that its rank physical repulsiveness must lead to a life of celibacy. While the king of the ocean was never decisively found, it was taken for granted that the salty denizens, suspended and baptized each and every moment of their lives, were of course Christian, and thus were engaged in the same study of the dry land as the europeans were of theirs.
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Much later, after this theory was retired in favor of binomial nomenclature and a pervasive ennui about sea-life in favor the opening of the world and discovery of real societies, it returned with a vengeance. Rather than the ocean and good old terra firma, the occident and orient were believe to be mirror images of eachother, divided by the meniscus of the Bosphorus. Rapturous Englishmen waxed poetic, their sideburns flapping like tiny bat wings in their gale-wreaked island, about Saladin and Mansa Musa, rulers every bit equal to Arthur, Ceasar, or Louis the IVX, save their appalling paganism. Whole cities, of ancient and powerful mein, mentioned in the holy books of three (or more!) religions, competed for the dubious honor of, “the paris of the east” : Beirut, Kabul, Damascus, and even Cairo wore this label with pride, until it ultimately betrayed them, just as their colonial rulers would.
And yet, the city divided by the Bosphorus, of a million zillion appelations, of the crescent, and for a goodly time, the cross and yes, the five-pointed star, was without a western or eastern equivalent. Instead, the city, alternately gracious and terrible, was forced to mirror itself. Istanbul, dear reader — and please allow it to inform and color all that follows — Istanbul is the Constantinople of the East. The metropolis is, I’m pleased and terrified to note, is it’s own evil twin; So above, below.
