Клинописи не горят

А теперь о вариантах восприятия времени в историческом измерении 🅰️ М. Ливерани интересно пишет о том, как в "циклическом" (скорее, говорит он, "остановленном, зафиксированном") времени у царьков Леванта типа Риб-Адды происходило смещение всех позитивных событий, "золотого века" – одновременно и в прошлое (Urzeit), и в будущее (Endezeit). 🌪 Оттого из нынешней как бы подвешенной между этими состояниями позиции – настоящее всё время катастрофизируется (чел буквально пишет "я умираю, если не помочь" в каждом письме фараону, годами 🤭), а автор вечного плача всегда занимает позицию жертвы – даже если он сам, скажем, участвует в нападениях и разбоях, но просто менее удачлив. 🤍 Это в свою очередь открывает дорогу фигуре спасителя. Этот спаситель, восстановитель воображаемого порядка, должен как бы разрубить узел времени и разлить золотой век в настоящем, в котором бедного просителя всё время обижают. ⚔ «The righteous sufferer <…> In situation like the one depicted by Rib-Adda the most characteristic is the quality of time. The pattern according to which a positive past is followed by a negative present, which it is hoped shall be followed by a positive future (as a repetition of the situation of the past, which serves as model), is generally characterized by a cyclic appreciation of time. This cyclic character is provided by the identification of the quality of the Endezeit with that of the Urzeit, by the éternel retour with which the one restores the order. All this is true, and has been (and is yet) essential for understanding the organization of time in texts of “mythical” flavour; especially since we have a clear contrast between this appreciation of time – different in quality – and the one – homogenous in quality – of linear time in “rational” thought. But the characterization of this time as cyclic could bring about a misunderstanding which it is important to avoid: with the above definition one could think that the propounders of this notion on certain occasions saw the cycle actually completed, i. e. noticed the coming into being in the present of the future which concludes the cycle. It is not so: it would be better to speak of “arrested time” than of a “cyclic time”. In the case of Rib-Adda, as we have said, the diachronic character of the documents evidences in itself the freezing of all historical experience in the immovable pattern: all positive events are framed into the past or future, all the negative ones into the present, and the position of the three periods is not subject to rotation, the protagonist being imprisoned in the temporal quality of the present. It is for this reason that the king of Ammiya is always killed “today”, even after ten years; it is for this reason that the visit to Pharaoh takes on a quality of salvation if set in the future but one of oppression if set in the present. The strength of the pattern is such as to assimilate all historical content to itself; the permanent datum is the persuasion of living in a negatively characterized present, to live on the brink of catastrophe. The happy images of past and future act like the bar of the tightrope walker, to keep immovable this quite fleeting moment which is the “eve of the end”. The wheel does not turn, it is at a halt». (M. Liverani, “Memorandum on the Approach to Historiographic Texts”)