Redemption: "for that I must descend to the depths"

I think I have made an error.

What kind of fool tells his audience that they should go away and return in two weeks or so because in the meantime things are going to be very, very boring? Zarathustra tells his disciples to leave and denounce him, but he's a mighty philosopher-poet. I'm just a hack job going out with an accidental whimper.

Clearly I need to rectify this blunder. Rectifying blunders is a slippery proposition, mostly because "rectify" is a worse idea than "ameliorate." In chess it is well-known that the most dangerous time, psychologically speaking, is just after you realise you've made the mistake. The impulse is to correct it by lashing out, with brutal violence hatched from desperation and chagrin, but the patient man knows that a minor misstep is not enough to ruin the position and that this is the moment to pull it together, man! and settle in for the long haul, play it stingy, rather than risk everything on a shoddy throw of the dice -- a dice-throw likely to fail, since the blunder has already put the gambler at a disadvantage.

I always say: "I'm a patient man." In as Croat-like an accent as I can muster, "I'mma pay-shyunt mann," I tell them.

Still, I have just the thing -- So: "as close to the gutter as I'm likely to get." Avert the eyes of the little ones, the sun is about to go under.

On a lark I did a Google search on Sun-Drunken's titular quotation. Pause a moment, selah, as I did not, and wonder what might come up. What I found -- if you guessed occultist textbooks and gay erotica, you were bang on. Apparently everyone else had the sense to keep their prose blue or red but not both at once.

The Google search summary left a tantalising dangling simile: "...set his locks on fire; his skin was sun drunken like a..." -- like a what, now? What's the end of that sentence? Ancient Bacchanallian reveller? Avatar of Eros? I have it -- icon of Icarus, apt and alliterative. But no: then it would not be "a" but "an." Instead they had a Mesopotamian theme going on:

"Enkidu!" My soul mate.... The light, now a pleasant, soft crimson, set his locks on fire; his skin was sun drunken like a peach.

Oh. So, anyway, that's "sun-drunken." What about "quivering" and "delight"? Well, naturally someone was saying something with "quivering" voice, dicit Google, and if you want to know what went with "delight," you can look it up yourself. I didn't bother. I couldn't quote it to anyone, anyway, for obvious reasons.

So that's where I am now: somewhere south of zealots and smut-mongers. Huzzah.

Back to high-minded parables next time, lads. That's how we're going to climb this valley.