I was rambling through the ruins of my memory palace looking for the Crusaders' last battle. Down a corridor, next to Humphrey Bogart holding a bird statue, a priest was kneeling outside the door, praying over a dead man. Inside, David I Walsh was walking around the suite dressed in a spaceman's uniform shouting "Let's make sure history never forgets the name: ENTERPRISE!" My mother, the WAVE, dressed in her WW2 officer's uniform is telling him: "Don't be a malcontent. Do your duty." I walked into the Sea Power room and there was Alfred Thayer Mahan, son of West Point's Irish savant, repeating "Lepanto, Lepanto." Then I realized something was terribly wrong! Mahan shouldn't be saying "Lepanto." Lepanto belongs in another room of the NROTC suite.
Recovered memory or not. There it was: Lepanto. It's 1571 and the Crusaders' last battle. The Pope has answered the Venetians' appeal for aid in resisting an Ottoman tsunami that had overwhelmed Cyprus and was headed west. Pius pulls together a Holy League fleet of 200 galleys from Spain, Venice and the Sovereign Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta (aka Knights Hospitaller), only a few years removed from the horrific four-month long Ottoman seige of Malta, the Crusaders' refuge after being driven across the Mediterranean from the Holy Land. The Ottomans entered the battle with an even larger fleet, but mostly manned by over 30,000 Christian oarsmen, galley slaves. In the ensuing battle, the Knights of Malta are mostly killed, the Muslims are defeated, western civilization is saved and the Christian galley slaves are freed ... a lot of them, anyway.
Down the hall, Donald Kagan dressed up as the Greek Themistocles is clearing his voice and shouting: "Let's make sure history never forget's the name: SALAMIS ... western civilization is saved!" A figure runs past Kagan and hops through a window onto the fire escape. I run after him. He stops and turns to look at me from the fire escape, his Whig askew. It's Lord Macaulay! He's stolen the keys to the rooms in my palace and waves them at me! A monkey on her back his head popping up over her shoulder, perhaps a Gibbon, Karen Armstrong grabs Macaulay's hand, and pulls him down the fire escape. Kagan yells "presentism" at them as Macaulay, Armstrong and her Gibbon disappear into the darkness.
Not to worry. I keep a backup in a safe space.
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Pop Quiz -- match column B to column A
-- extra credit: is the above an homage to Matteo Ricci or Stephen King
-- extra credit: is the above an homage to Matteo Ricci or Stephen King
