Nothing Changes on New Year's Day

Lasciate ogni speranza per il 2024

 

 

I don't like - and have never liked - the Irish rock band U2.

 

But that isn't to say they haven't written some fine songs, including 'New Year's Day', which contains the killer line: Nothing changes on New Year's Day [1] - a line which counters all the mad optimism of those gawping at fireworks, popping champagne corks, and singing 'Auld Lang Syne' without any idea of what the phrase means. 

 

Often, these are the same people who criticise others for being despairing about the past or present and who insist on being hopeful for the future - even though the expectation of positive outcomes with respect to temporal progress seems entirely groundless.   

 

I don't want to sound too diabolical, but it seems to me that the phrase lasciate ogni speranza written above the gates of Hell is actually a sound piece of advice [2]. For Nietzsche may have a point when he suggests that it is hope which prolongs the torments of man and is thus the most evil of all evils [3].    

 

Finally, let me remind readers also that whilst hope may be one of the great Christian virtues, in Norse mythology it is simply the drool dripping from the mouth of the monstrous Fenris Wolf and courage a term for the gay bravery displayed by the warrior in the absence of hope.

 

 

Notes

 

[1] U2, 'New Year's Day', released as a lead single from the album War (Island Records, 1983): click here to play the official video (dir. Meiert Avis). 

 

[2] The line in full reads Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate ('Abandon all hope, ye who enter here') and it concludes an inscription above the gates of Hell according to Dante. See Inferno Canto III, line 9: click here.

[3] See Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human, II 71: click here.

Auðumbla: The Primeval Cow of Norse Mythology

Nicolai Abildgaard: Ymer dier koen Ødhumbla (c. 1777)

National Gallery of Denmark [Statens Museum for Kunst]

 

Readers might be interested to know that it's not just bear cubs and sinful human beings that require licking into shape [1]. 

 

According to Norse mythology, even the forefather of the gods was given form by the tongue of a primeval cow, Auðumbla, who, over a three day period, licked away at a salty-tasting block of ice until the figure of Búri came forth; fair of feature and mighty of build [2]. 

As if that weren't enough, Auðumbla also suckled the primordial frost giant Ymir with her milk, which flowed like four rivers from her udders (the first part of her name is thought to attest to the richness of this milk). 

 

Auðumbla is thus the mother of all; licking the Æsir into being and nourishing the jötnar. In her cowy mystery, antagonists are united and all contradictions contained. 

 

In the beginning, we might say, wasn't the Word, but a Moo ...

 

Notes

 

[1] See my recent post on being licked into shape by bears, cats, and virtuous women - click here. 

[2] The existence of Auðumbla is attested in the 13th century text composed by Icelander Snorri Sturluson known as the Prose Edda. Modern scholars have shown how her story probably derives from an earlier body of Germanic mythology and can ultimately be placed within a wider context of religious mythology concerning sacred cows, such as Kamadhenu, who is worshipped by Hindus. Readers interested in this topic might like to see a post published back in December 2017: click here.