On shipwrecks.

Something to note while I slowly proceed on this project.

On the Plausibility and Purpose of Paul’s Sea Voyage in Acts 27

Yo, aseguro que sí...

Somewhat unexpectedly, my historical interest in early twentieth-century Dominican baseball necessitated diving into some more ancient historical topics. As I studied the writing of early Dominican letrados, or men of letters, who wrote about baseball, it became evident that they had difficulty writing about their attempt to establish a "modern" Dominican Republic without referring to the classical past of the Mediterranean. There is another location one can read about this in-depth, if one is so inclined. One thing I intend to do here is something I had less time to do while writing my MA thesis: collect, display, and translate Dominican poetry from the letrados I studied. From my cursory searches, there is little to no digital record of any of these. Here is one to start. It seems to be something of a Homeric ode, native to the Caribbean. In a common theme, the author places himself into the narrative arc of the poem. I have included my attempt at a translation below.

Listin Diario (Santo Domingo), July 4, 1917.

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The Poem of Life

To pass through the world planting roses
the blue prairies, the infertile rock;
of Venus and Ondinas the hip of the sea;

To be an inhabitant of a gallant world;
or be a soldier of time past,
who knows in the fight to laugh and sing!

Being One, protean, distinct, diverse.
Being One in prose and One in verse:
Diverse in form and One in Truth

To have as the ray of the Sun at dawn,
a prism that breaks the light and flora,
or climb in heaven his triumphal arch!

To put sandals on the feet of the ladies,
and next to the flames to dress in tulle,
to be a knight in armor and sword,
or the pack-saddle boy of a blue prince

That it matters the same to be a duke or a page;
to be the trunk or branch of the tree of Love;
that all we have is a broken-off branch
to render vassalage and be worshiped by a heart

To tame spirited ponies, to wear flowered silk,
and grasp the manes to make them fly;
and hear the sonata of many violins,
and under shades of white jasmine
bring the bride the triumphal stanza!

To feel arrogant in the middle of life;
and next to the wound put a flower
and to make many verses of rhyme felt,
and to be a Leonidas facing the pain!

Raised forehead and bare chest;
standing in the trench; standing on the shield,
like a gladiator!
to evade slander, to laugh at the foolishness;
to look upon the infamous with sad contempt
and make many verses of Life and Love!

To feel alive like an Argonaut
rowing in the prow of a strong vessel;
behind the Lyre and the Flute,
with course to the beaches of honey and wine

Sighted are ten thousand pilgrims,
and smiling sailors in triumphal air,
that haughtily crossed by bad roads,
evading the traitorous and fatal destiny!

And so we row with a thousand songs;
furious waters, swollen sails,
and sights fixed on the polar star;

Wearing a gentle and radiant torch,
which illuminates with pink and diamond lights,
the Motherland, the Wife, the Bliss, the Home!

M. German Soriano

---

The Sea as Metaphor from the Caribbean to Galilee

In the previous post, Dominican letrado Goitia exclaimed that it was indeed possible to return to life after being thrown into the sea. In the specified contest between famed Dominican squads Gimnasio Escolar and Atlético, Goitia gloated how Atlético sent the “poor boys” of Gimnasio Escolar crazily spinning all over the field in futile pursuit of batted balls and frustratingly unable to stop the Atlético running game.  Goitia openly admonished another Dominican letrado associated with Gimnasio Escolar, Orgen, personally. “Now you shut up, Orgen?” he wrote. He continued, suggesting that Orgen abandon his place in baseball and instead devote himself to his writing, and not to come back to the scene like a ricocheting baseball.

As it turns out, Orgen did ricochet and had a response for Goitia. Two weeks later, Orgen, continuing the favored metaphor of the sea, predicted that Gimnasio Escolar will make their "friend" Goitia surrender his soul to the creator in a deep sea. However, he clarifies that this is not the Caribbean--instead, Orgen declares that this sea is a deep sea of shame, longing, and tears. 

Listin Diario (Santo Domingo) November 17, 1917.

The use of the sea as a metaphor recalls some scholarship I recently read on Mark's use of the Sea of Galilee as a literary device. I won't summarize too much of it in this space, but you can read it here. Notably, it appears that Mark drew upon Greek and Jewish sources to establish the role of the "sea" (much more a lake) of Galilee in presenting the Markan Jesus, with a priority on symbolism over geographical accuracy.

Prologue

I have decided to begin a blog to accompany and document my historical forays, and also as a tool to motivate and encourage myself to continue in doing so. I am beginning this with personal intentions, although if it is of interest to anyone else, a part of my role as a historian may be slightly fulfilled. 

My primary interest is the development of baseball in the early modern Caribbean, especially the Dominican Republic. My master's thesis, to be defended this spring, deals with this phenomena in the context of the U.S. occupation of the island during the First World War, the nature of Dominican resistance to foreign rule, and the role of the urban intellectuals of Santo Domingo, or letrados, in the advent of the Dominican game. 

The name for this blog comes from one particular exchange between the Dominican letrados who covered baseball in the capital. In a tradition not unique to Dominican baseball (I'll expand on this in a later post), Dominican letrados, writing anonymously, associated their baseball discourse with a poetic tradition. One writer, going only by Goitia, composed:

¿Se puede volver a la vida

después de tirarse al mar?

Is it possible to return to life

after being thrown into the sea?

The sea as a metaphor is common in the various baseball diatribes I've encountered in my research, not surprisingly due to the proximity of the Caribbean. I could not help but wonder if the usage of "thrown into the sea" is an allusion to the Gospel of Mark. I am not certain there is a connection, but an additional vein of my layperson's historical interest is biblical scholarship, I felt the title was sufficient in encompassing whatever I may write about or share here.

Listin Diario (Santo Domingo), October 31, 1917.