Nebuchadnezzar a rich seam and identifying the drawing with him seems pretty apposite. According to the KJV, Daniel and his chums are relocated and taken to Babylon by N; he takes all the top brass including the silversmiths and artisans, leaving only the poor to tend the land. Takes the useful, kills the bosses. Daniel is left in the charge of the chief Eunuch with instructions to feed him with the kings meat and wine. Daniel demurs on religious grounds (animals are sacrificed to idols in the course of slaughter - the abattoirs doubled up as temples.) He gets pulses and water and he and his mates grow up well. Pretty smart move; there's a sporting chance the king was being poisoned judging by his subsequent behaviour...
Dreams are very Freudian, it seems to me - edifices being built, collapsing and scattering like seed, phnar phnar, horns with mouths. The first dream is brill because N has allegedly forgotten it. He gets his team of mystics together and demands an interpretation. Great way of getting rid of dead wood:) Daniel dreams it, care of the lord, and interprets it. Shared dreams? The Book of Daniel moves through the personal, 'I, Daniel', to the objective (rather confusingly) which made me remember Jaynes hypothesis on the breakdown of the bicameral mind. The B of D illustrates it beautifully - must check and see if Jaynes uses it at all.
Anyway after telling and interpreting dream one, Daniel is taken up and his Lord declared boss; N forgets this quite quickly and there are repeated proofs that his god is bigger than the others, featuring furnaces and lions dens, repeated forgetfulness. Nice one where at the sound of music everyone has to bow to some other god and Daniel doesn't, but the point is, why?? How mad is N at this point? -Or is it just a Stalinesque tactic?
Final N dream, Daniel is able to explain that N will loose it but it will be alright. So loose it he does, hair like eagles feathers, feet like eagles claws, eating grass like an ox. Two symbols of two evangelists there, perhaps a new thing trying to emerge?
Whatever.
The period of time in which N runs wild is obscure (to me); long enough to grow long toe nails, for the Babylonian hair-do to come adrift. It might not be very long, in short - couple of months? - after which he resumes his role as King of the World. How self-conscious is this holiday? Could be that N used the interpretation to -ahem- turn himself out to pasture, see what goes on in his absence.
So, my drawing shows our king with a fork. Might or might not be aware. Might or might not have a bicameral mind; the two-faced head in the drawing handles this. Might or might not be being poisoned.
Thoroughly enjoyed reading the Bible, the KJV is so sonorous and meant for the voice. I read it out loud to my dog. 'Daniels' writing is wonderful, concise and pithy and packed with info.
Now to read commentaries and Jaynes. Interesting that my culture here in the S of F on the fridges of reason -!- may be returning to the bicameral. What is 'channeling' but hearing voices? Its assumed to be normal here.
Off to life drawing now. I guess I'm channeling ideas, projecting onto a nude. Hmm.
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Later; life drawing good though I was set to use watercolour and took no brushes:) One little one in a box set and some fingers - fine.
All the outcomes were of Daniel. Oh one useful Nebuchadnezzar pose.
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So most of the afternoon with books, trying to read around him. The commentaries I have are devotional and junk. The histories are slight. 'Nebuchadnezzar's Dictionary' [p.241, Ceram, C.W., trans. EB Garside and Sophie Wilkins,Gods, Graves and Scholars, 2cnd ed., Book Club Associates 1971] shows Alpu, the cuneiform devise for horned cattle/ ox [also p.21, item 16:viii; Kramer, Samuel Noah , History Begins at Sumner: Thames and Hudson, 1958] and Ullu (rejoicing), Ulbu (shout with joy) and Asamu (to be fitting). The latter three have Alpu as the basis of their word, with one character in front; and these three are the same as each other; presumably context makes the difference. This character-in-front is key in the cuneiform for Kirr, smelting furnace and Utunu, the (different) character for oven/ stove. In short, in 6 cuneiform's we have a potted history- ox, rejoicing, shout with joy, to be fitting, smelting furnace, oven/ stove - and I detect a cabbalistic-type joke :) Hope so.
Other interesting bits; Ceram has N live from 1146 - 1123; Keller (p. 276, Keller, Werner, The Bible as History, Hodder and Stoughton 1974) puts him at 605 -562.
Ceram writes of the Dragon of Babylon, Sirrush, as the familiar of Marduck - he has vertical horns and a split tongue.
Keller p.280 finds cuneiform records stored in Berlin about the life of Jehoiachin, deposed king of Judea, living with family and household in N's palace and "eight persons from the land of Judea" given food from the King.
Have looked at all I can find re hairdressing of the epoch.
Probably have enough info for the painting now but want to check out Blake and have a think. Taking tomorrow off to Christmas shop.
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