Royal Ruination

King Belshazzar
& the Original

Writing on the Wall

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Sometimes when people realize they're engaged in an exercise in futility, they shrug and walk away from the struggle muttering, "I can see the writing on the wall." It's their acknowledgment of defeat.

Where did the phrase "writing on the wall" come from? The same source as so many of our other folk terms and wise sayings: the Bible. Babylonian King Belshazzar in 538 B.C. threw a party for his wives, concubines and a thousand nobles. Amid the revelry and idol worship, Scripture records, there "came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king's palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote." Naturally alarmed, Belshazzar summoned his astrologers and offered great rewards to the one who could interpret the unintelligible message. None succeeded.

Then he was reminded of the prophet Daniel, the Israelite captive who had earned renown during the reign of Belshazzar's father Nebuchadnezzar. Brought to the banquet hall, Daniel understood the chilling words: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. Loose translation: Belshazzar had been "weighed in the balances" and "found wanting;" his reign was at its end, and his kingdom would be taken over by the Medes and Persians. The king was killed that same night, and Darius the Median replaced him.

The story is chronicled in the fifth chapter of the Book of Daniel.

Lewis & Clark
Interesting Details
Of Their Expedition

You learned in grade school history class of the historic cross-country journey to the Pacific by pioneers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. The two U.S. Army officers were assigned by President Thomas Jefferson to explore the Pacific Northwest, which they did from May 1804 to September 1806. You undoubtedly know also about Sacagawea, the Indian woman who helped guide them.

Many details of the event typically are overlooked in historical overviews. For example:

* Besides figuratively staking a claim to the vast, strange western territory for the young nation, Jefferson hoped the explorers would find the fabled Northwest Passage, a waterway (nonexistent, we know now) connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

* The entourage formally was named the "Corps of Discovery."

* Among the 48 adventurers departing from the St. Louis vicinity in 1804 was York, a slave of Lt. Clark. Indians gave him a special name: "Big Medicine." York was freed some years after the epic.

* Sacagawea, a Shoshone, was only 16 or 17 years old when she joined the party. She was the slave/wife of a French trader named Toussaint Charbonneau. It was actually Charbonneau whose services the Army initially engaged, but Sacagawea proved particularly invaluable in negotiations with native peoples the soldiers encountered. Today, most Americans know of Sacagawea; few ever have heard of her husband.

* Astonishingly, only one member of the party died during the hazardous undertaking. Sgt. Charles Floyd succumbed with a ruptured appendix in August 1804, just three month after the journey began.

* The Spanish sent military forces from Mexico to waylay the expedition, but failed.

* Capt. Lewis died under mysterious circumstances in October 1809. As governor of Louisiana Territory, he was traveling through Tennessee on a trip to Washington, DC. Apparently depressed and physically ill, he took shelter one night at a rural inn, where he died of two gunshot wounds. Most historians assume he committed suicide, but murder theories persist.

The Great Blithering Antiquity Quiz:

1) The Monmouth Rebellion in Devon, England, was raised in 1685 against which King?
a) Edward I
b) Henry IV
c) James II
d) Charles I

2) Mary Edwards Walker (1832-1919) was a pioneering woman in what profession?

3) Fannie Farmer's popular work The Boston Cooking School Cook Book first was published in:
a) 1799
b) 1847
c) 1896
d) 1931

4) What was the name of the Russian battleship that inspired a 1905 rebellion and a 1925 classic silent film?

5) True or false: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a Freemason.

CHECK YOUR ANSWERS

Artemus? Artemas?
What a Difference
A Vowel Makes. . . .

If you're like most American history buffs, you probably sense that you vaguely know who Artemas Ward was . . . but perhaps you don't. The Ward you think you may have heard of most likely was the one who spelled his name Artemus—with a "u" rather than an "a." And in point of fact, that wasn't really his name.

Enough with the confusion! Who, exactly, were these elusive Wards?

Artemas (with an "a") preceded George Washington as commander-in-chief of American forces during the Revolutionary War. Born in 1727, he was a Harvard graduate, a French and Indian War veteran and already an "old man" (and reportedly a fat, unhealthy one) in his late 40s when the great struggle commenced. Although he never achieved battlefield greatness, Ward technically commanded the American forces around Boston and Bunker Hill during the early engagements in 1775. In abysmal physical condition, he relinquished command to Washington in July of that year. Ward died in 1800 and to the end of his life maintained animosity toward his military successor, who became the figurative father of our country. (Ward, oviously, became . . . forgettable.)

Thirty-four years after his death was born in Waterford, ME, one Charles Farrar Browne. He became a newspaperman and, using the pseudonym "Artemus Ward" (spelled with a "u"), wrote a series of humorous epistles, ostensibly told from the point of view of an itinerant showman. Among his many remembered sayings: "Let us all be happy and live within our means, even if we have to borrow the money to do it." Ward's homespun writings became so popular (President Lincoln gleefully read them to his cabinet) that he emerged from journalism as a well-paid lecturer. In 1866—only a year before his untimely death—he settled in London. Artemus always maintained that his penname was not inspired by the name of the Revolutionary general and that, in fact, he'd never heard of the Massachusetts Ward.

Exemplifying his literary flair is the preface to Artemus Ward, His Book: "Ladies and Gentlemen, the Show is about to commence. You could not well expect to go in without paying, but you may pay without going in. I can say no fairer than that."

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