Naiad

Naiad (pronounced ney-ad, ney-uhd or nahy-ad)

(1) In Classical Mythology, a nymph (a female deity) dwelling in (in some stories “presiding over”) a lake, river, spring or fountain.

(2) In entomology, aquatic larva or juvenile form of the dragonfly, damselfly, mayfly and related insects.

(3) In botany, any monocotyledonous submerged aquatic plant of the genus Naias (or Najas), having narrow leaves and small flowers (of the family Naiadaceae (or Najadaceae) and also called the water nymph.

(4) In malacology, any of certain freshwater mussels of the genus Unio.

(5) In informal use, a female swimmer, especially a young, expert one.

Circa 1600: From the Latin Nais, Naias & Nāïad- (stem of Nāïas, genitive naiadis), from the Ancient Greek Nāïás (plural Naiades) (a water nymph) and related to νάω (náō or náein) (to flow), from the primitive Indo-European naw-yo-, a suffixed form of snau & nau- (to swim, flow, let flow (from the primitive Indo-European root sna- (to swim).  The English poet, literary critic, translator and playwright John Dryden (1631–1700) used the Latin singular form Nais; In English, the plural form Naiades was in use as early as the late fourteenth century and the use of the initial capital was inconsistent, something not unusual in Middle and early Modern English .  Naiad is a noun; the noun plural is naiads or naiades.

The companion term (in the sense they were often riparian (growing on the bank of a river or stream)) was dryad (a female tree spirit), from the Old French driade (wood nymph), from the Latin Dryas & Dryadis, from the Ancient Greek Δρυάς (Druás) (dryad), from δρῦς (drûs) (oak), from the primitive Indo-European derew & derewo- (tree, wood) and related to the primitive Indo-European dóru (tree).  The niads should not be confused with the Nereids (plural Nereids or Nereides).  In Greek Mythology, Nerids were one of 50 sea nymphs who were attendants upon Poseidon (Neptune); they were represented riding on sea horses, sometimes in human form and sometimes with the tail of a fish.  In zoology, nerid is an alternative form of nereidid (any polychaete worm of the Nereididae).  Nereid was from the stem of the Latin Nērēis (sea-nymph), from the Ancient Greek Νηρηΐς (Nērēḯs), from Νηρεύς (Nēreús) (the sea-god Nereus).

Fuchsia Water Nymph.

The Naiads were water nymphs who, although very long-lived, were mortal, a physiology not unique among the deities of Classical Mythology and although the Naiads incarnate the divinity of the spring or stream which they inhabited, a waterway could be the home to more than one of the nymphs; presence did not confer an exclusivity of dominion.  As is typical of the myths, the stories often are inconsistent for although Homer said the Naiads were the daughters of Zeus, elsewhere they’re described as daughters of the waters in which they dwell.  The daughters of Ασωπός (Asopus) were Naiads.  Asopus (Ασωπός) was the god of the river Asopus and (the family tree is typically murky and varies with the source) was either son of Poseidon & Pero, of Zeus & Eurynome or of Oceanus & Tethys.  He married Metope, the daughter of Ladon, fathered two sons (Ismenus and Pelagon) and an impressive 20 daughters although The Greek historian of the first century BC, Διόδωρος (Diodorus of Sicily) listed the names only of a dozen (Corcyra, Salamis, Aegina, Pirene, Cleone, Thebe, Tanagra, Thespia, Asopis, Sinope, Oenia (or Ornia) and Chalcis.  Confusingly Asopus is in other places mentioned as the said to be the father of Antiope and Plataea (that genealogy contested by other authors), after whom the city Plataea is named.  Plataea was a city-state in Boeotia at the foot of Mount Cithaeron, between the mountain and the river Asopus (which divided its territory from that of Thebes).  The modern Greek town of Plataies is adjacent to its ruins.

Led astray by freshwater sirens: Hylas and the Nymphs (1896), oil on canvas by the aptly named John William Waterhouse (1849–1917), Manchester Art Gallery, England.  Ύλας (Hylas) would not long live to enjoy his flirtation with a pack of Naiads.  Much taken by his beauty, the naiads lured the youth to the water for their pleasure, after which, according to the Roman Poet Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso; 43 BC–17 AD), they drowned him; at the least, that suggests ingratitude.  Hylas may have died content but that's not something on which Ovid dwelt.

In theory, there shouldn't be a river or spring without at least one naiad but the storied ones were those associated with famous waterways and many of the nymphs had adventures (not always welcome) with the good, great and ghastly.  At Syracuse dwelt the beautiful Αρέθουσα (Arethusa; all nymphs were beauties but Arethusa was a supermodel among the breed), a companion of Αρτεμις (Artemis) who was identified by the Romans with Diana.  Some said she was the daughter of Demeter, but in most stories she was the twin sister of Apollo, their parents being Zeus and Leto.  One day, while swimming in the river (something which, unsurprisingly, the Naiads often did), Arethusa realized she wasn’t alone when she heard the voice of Alpheus, the god of the river, whose crush on her had developed into a passion which included stalking her.  Pursued by the lustful god, the nymph fled, crying out for Artemis to save her from what she knew would be an awful fate.  Artemis surrounded her in a concealing fog but Alpheus refused to leave the place where the mist swirled and in fright, Arethusa turned into a fountain.  In the way the myths handle the physics of such circumstances, the earth opened up to prevent Alpheus mingling his own waters with those of the spring which Arethusa had become, and, guided by Artemis, Arethusa went through underground channels to Syracuse, on the Island of Ortygia (which is dedicated to Artemis).  This Hellenistic myth is preferred by most but another version of the attempted sexual assault involves Αλφειός (Alpheus, (another river god)) which differs only in detail.

Lindsay Lohan, as a Naiad, surfacing from her spring.

The Naiads were often claimed to possess powers of healing and the notion of “curing waters” persists into the twenty-first century; although some of this is quackery there is a scientific basis in some cases and the origin of the use of lithium as an early anti-depressant was physicians in Ancient Greek noting the drinking of waters from a certain place “cured men of melancholy”.  Those waters turned out to have a pharmacologically significant lithium content.  However, not all naiads could be used so efficaciously because bathing in certain springs or rivers could be considered sacrilegious, even if it was someone exulted taking a dip.  Nero (Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (37-68; Roman emperor (and the final emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty) 54-68)) was attacked by fever and some sort of partial paralysis and after bathing in the source of the Aqua Marcia and the Roman scuttlebutt was he’s incurred the displeasure of the Naiads, something which brought Nero’s subjects some delight.  Clearly, one upset a Naiad a one’s own risk because it was said also they could visit madness upon those who laid eyes on them, the nymphs possessing the mortal spirit of a transgressor and driving them to insanity.  For this reasons, travelers were warned (the Trip Advisor concept is not new) Naiads were particularly numerous in the Péloponnèse, a place of many waterways.

Palinode

Palinode (pronounced pal-uh-nohd)

(1) A poem in which the poet retracts something said in an earlier poem.

(2) A recantation (used loosely and now rare).

(3) In Scots law, a recantation of a defamatory statement.

1590–1600: From the sixteenth century French palinode (poetical recantation, poem in which the poet retracts invective contained in a former satire), from the Middle French palinode, from the Late Latin palinōdia (palinode, recantation), from the Ancient Greek παλινῳδία (palinōidía) (poetic retraction), the construct being πάλιν (pálin) (again, back) + ᾠδή (ōidḗ) (ode, song) + -ia (from the Latin -ia and the Ancient Greek -ία (-ía) & -εια (-eia), which form abstract nouns of feminine gender.  It was used when names of countries, diseases, species etc and occasionally collections of stuff).  The alternative form palinody is obsolete.  Palinode & palinodist are nouns, palinodial, palinodical & palinodic are adjectives and palinodically is a (non-standard) adverb; the noun plural is palinodes).

Although the palinode is now usually defined as meaning “a poem in which the palinodist (ie the poet) retracts something said in an earlier poem”, the French in the sixteenth century seem mostly to have use the word of works in which the writer “retracts invective contained in a former satire”.  It thus had an obviously political slant and it seems likely at least some palinodes were penned to stave of threats of legal action (or something worse).  Although it endures in literary use (and among political scientists with a feeling for classical forms), the word has long been obscure and the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) lists the adjective palinodical as obsolete with its only known instance of use dating from 1602 when it appeared in a work by the English poet, playwright and pamphleteer Thomas Dekker (circa 1572-1632).  The “other” species of palinode was the “ode to Sarah Palin” (b 1964; Republican nominee for VPOTUS 2008) of which there were several including some set to music.

The palinode became associated with poetry because verse (in one form or another) was once a more common form of written expression.  It has however been applied to any retraction or recantation (formal or otherwise), especially one that publicly withdraws an earlier statement, belief or work.  For reasons of ecclesiastical practice, theological palinodes tended to be in verse but there were exceptions including by John Milton (1608–1674) who in The Reason of Church-Government (1642) retracted his earlier advocacy of episcopacy (the bishops and their role), acknowledging his views had changed; for years it remained a rare example of its type.  Beyond poetry proper, use has been quite loose and memorable palinodes have been political, scientific and literary, some especially of the latter described variously as “insincere”, “back-handed” or “bitchy”.  Much of their charm lies in some retractions becoming famous while the original text doubtlessly would have been forgotten were it not for the palinode.

The Death of Socrates (1787), oil on canvas by Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.  Had Socrates just dashed off a palinode, maybe he'd never have had to take his dish of hemlock.

The archetypal palinode dates from the sixth century BC and it set the template.  According to legend, the Greek lyric poet Stesichorus (Στησίχορος, circa 630–555 BC) blamed Helen of Troy for the Trojan War and almost at once was struck blind.  He then composed a (“it was not true…”) palinode absolving Helen of guilt, the words of the encomium (praise, eulogy) said to have come to him in a dream.  His sight was restored, thus the understanding the use of the device as a means of undoing moral or divine offense.  The texts from Antiquity have of course survived only in fragmentary form but clearly there were palinodes, Plato (circa 427-348 BC) in his Phaedrus (a dialogue between Socrates (circa 470–399 BC) and Phaedrus (circa 444–393 BC)) he recounted how Socrates first delivers a speech condemning love, then explicitly retracts it with a second passage praising divine madness and erotic love.  Plato explicitly called the second speech “a palinode”, making it one of philosophy’s earliest known self-conscious retractions and, it has to be admitted, only those for whom martyrdom is a calling would think it not preferable to taking hemlock.

Geoffrey Chaucer (circa 1344-1400), right at the end of The Canterbury Tales (1387-1400), as a formal retraction, disowned those earlier passages he had come to think sinful or frivolous and begged forgiveness for having written them.  It's considered one of Medieval literature’s most explicit and sincere palinodes and presumably he also asked God and at least one priest for absolution for those unworthy thoughts, this likely the course of action taken also by the English journalist Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990) who wrote long pieces disavowing earlier having welcomed communism and opposed censorship.  One long-established tradition (transgress with enthusiasm in youth; reform with piety as one contemplates mortality) is a movement owing much to Saint Augustine of Hippo (354–430) who in Confessiones (Confessions, 397-400) wrote: Da mihi castitatem et continentiam, sed noli modo (Lord, give me chastity and continence, but not yet), an exemplar of that school of the palinodic being George W Bush (George XLIII, b 1946; POTUS 2001-2009) who abandoned whiskey and much else.  As he might have put it in a “Bushism”: “I spent my youth misunfortunatistically”.  The whole “born-again” movement in Christianity seems often something of a life lived palinodically.

Galileo before the Holy Office (1847), oil on canvas by Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury (1797-1890).

The element “Holy Office” was first applied to the official designation for the Inquisition during the thirteenth century and after that there were a number of variant constructions before in 1965, it was renamed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), the most famous of the latter-day inquisitors being Benedict XVI (1927–2022; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022) who, with some relish, discharged the role between 1981-2005.  Since 2022, the Inquisition has been styled the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF).  Coincidentally, DDF is also the acronym for “drug & disease free” and (in gaming) “Doom definition file” while there’s also the DDF Network which is an aggregator of pornography content.  The Holy See may be aware of these uses but probably takes the view the target markets are different and, given the DDF Network appears not to offer any “gay male” content, if one author’s conclusions are accepted, the site is unlikely often to be accessed by priests, bishops, cardinals and such.

Some palinodes have become among the more famous statements made by an accused before a court.  Under courts run by the Nazis and the Soviet Union they were of course legion (the scripts often written by the prosecutors) but the most famous was probably the retraction the Roman Inquisition in 1633 extracted from the Italian physicist and pioneering astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564–1642); under threat of torture (words to be taken seriously if from the lips of an inquisitor), he abjured his support for heliocentrism; the defendant's legendary mutter: “Eppur si muove” (although it does move) almost certainly apocryphal.  After that, palinodes came thick and fast, the Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) in Les Confessions (Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1770, published 1782)) not only his retracted many of his earlier stances (especially in matters of religion and education) but did so repeatedly, sometimes in the same chapter.  More than a decade in the writing, Les Confessions functions as something of a “rolling palinode”, his intellectual past constantly revised.  More nuanced in this approach was the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809-1882) who, in later editions of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (1859), toned down or even withdrew some claims regarding human evolution and teleology.  These revisions can be considered “partial palinodes” but they were really merely a reflection of the modern scientific method which updates theories as new evidence emerges; a matter of correct intellectual caution.

Agitprop poster of comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953, left) greeting comrade Trofim Lysenko (1898-1976, right).  The Russian slogan (РАБОТАТЬ ТАК, ЧТОБЫ ТОВАРИЩ СТАЛИН СПАСИБО СКАЗАЛ!) translates best as “Work in such a way that comrade Stalin will say ‘thank you.’”  In comrade Stalin’s Soviet Union, wise comrades followed this sound advice.  For students of the techniques used in the propaganda of personality cults, it should be noted comrade Stalin stood around 1.65 metres (5 foot, 5 inches) tall.

In the matter of scientific and intellectual palinodes, others can do the retractions which can be thought of as palinodes by proxy or (more flippantly) Munchausen palinodes by proxy.  To avoid damage to his reputation, Sir Isaac Newton’s (1642–1727) executors and later editors suppressed and implicitly retracted his alchemical writings and similar judicious editing has excised from the records of some their embrace of the once intellectually respectable field of astrology.  Actually, Newton wasn’t wholly wrong on the science; at the molecular level there is little difference between lead and gold and although traditional chemical alchemy seems impossible, recent experiments have, atom-by-atom, transformed lead into gold, the problem being that to transform a few atoms (and even these often short-lived radioactive isotopes rather than stable Au-197) demanded the use of a huge and expensive particle accelerator; unless there’s some unanticipated breakthrough, the process cannot be scaled up so gold must continue to be dug up.  Communism systems too belatedly made something of an art of the palinode.

In the Soviet Union, after the death of comrade Stalin, a number of “scientific orthodoxies” supported by the late leader abruptly were cancelled, notably the dotty, pseudoscientific “theories” of agronomist Trofim Lysenko whose doctrine of Lysenkoism set back Soviet agriculture by decades.  The evidence suggests comrade Stalin was well aware comrade Lysenko was likely a comrade charlatan but, uniquely among the many Soviet apparatchiks, the dodgy agronomist achieved a great rapport with the peasants who were being most tiresome.  It was Lysenko’s remarkable success in convincing peasants to accept the Kremlin’s imposition of collectivized farming that make him Stalin’s invaluable asset.  In China, when comrade Chairman Mao (Mao Zedong 1893–1976; chairman of the CCP, 1949-1976) instituted many of Lysenko’s “agricultural reforms” (which included applying Karl Marx's (1818-1883) theories of class consciousness to the thought processes of seeds), in the great famine which followed, it's believed between 40-45 million may have starved to death.  The Kremlin was at least precise in who or what got cancelled whereas the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) were a little vague although the Chinese people understood their language.  Long skilled at “reading between the Central Committee’s lines”, when they heard it admitted comrade Chairman Mao’s legacy was “70% good and 30% bad”, the meaning was clear.  As a judgment it may have been generous but if applied to some leaders in the West, would the numbers be any more favorable?

Lindsay Lohan on the cover of Vogue Czechoslovakia, May 2025.

So palinody has a long tradition but while figures like Rousseau, Darwin and Muggeridge had years or even decades “agonizingly to reappraise” their position, in the social media age, it can within the hour be necessary to recant.  In 2006, Lindsay Lohan granted an interview to Vanity Fair in which she acknowledged: “I knew I had a problem and I couldn't admit it.  “I was making myself sick.  I was sick and I had people sit me down and say: 'You're going to die if you don't take care of yourself'”, adding she used drugs: “a little”.  On reflection, and possibly after seeking advice, he publicist the next day contacted the magazine in an attempt to get the “drug confession” retracted.  Later, she would also recant her claims her earlier (and by some much-admired) weight-loss had been achieved by D&E (diet & exercise), admitting it was the consequence of an eating disorder.  Ms Lohan has issued a few palinodes (but although also a song-writer, none have been in poetic verse) and as well as drug use, the correctives have covered topics such as the MeToo movement, Harvey Weinstein (b 1952), Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025) and her attitudes to motherhood.

Ye (b 1977, the artist formerly known as Kanye West).

The first notable palinode of 2026 was interesting for a number of reasons, the first of which was structural.  Although the once vibrant industry of print journalism has in the West been hollowed out by successive strikes from the internet, social media and AI (artificial intelligence), in a tactic guaranteed to ensure maximum cross-platform coverage, the multi-media personality, rap singer and apparel designer Ye chose as the host for his latest announcement not Instagram or X (formerly known as Twitter) but a full-page advertisement in Rupert Murdoch’s WSJ (Wall Street Journal).  As a “commercial, in confidence” arrangement, it’s not certain how much the WSJ would have invoiced to run the copy but advertising in the paper remains at “premium level” because of its national circulation and readership with a high proportion in the still much-prized “A”, “B1” & “B2” demographics.  Industry sources suggest that, depending on the day of the week and other variables, a full-page advertisement (black & white) placement in the WSJ’s national edition typically would cost between US$160,000–$220,000 for a “one-off” (ie no re-runs or ongoing contract).

That’s obviously rather more than a post on Instagram or X but what a still “prestigious” legacy title like the WSJ confers is a certain “authority” because, as Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) explained in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964): “The medium is the message”.  If one conveys one’s message through a whole page of the WSJ, regardless of the text’s content, the message is different compared with the same words appearing on a social media platform: anyone can post a palinode on Instagram but only a few can pay Rupert Murdoch US$200,000-odd to print it in the WSJ.  The point about Mr Ye using the WSJ was the message was aimed not only at his usual audience but those in finance and industry who interact with the music and apparel businesses.  While some consumers of rap music or his other “projects” may be WSJ readers or even subscribers, the publication’s base has a very different profile and it will be a certain few of those Mr Ye wishes his message to reach.

Marigold Counseling's Bipolar Disorder chart.

Headed “To those I’ve hurt”, his palinode was more than a simple retraction and was an apology for his previous “reckless” anti-Semitism; whether “reckless” carefully was chosen from the spectrum (careless; reckless; intentional) used by disciplinary bodies in sporting competitions wasn’t discussed.  By way of explanation, Mr Ye revealed that some 25 years earlier, he’d suffered an injury to the “right frontal lobe” of his brain and, because the medical focus at the time was on the “immediate physical trauma”, “comprehensive scans were not done” meaning “the deeper injury, the one inside my skull, went unnoticed.”  It seems that not until 2023 was his condition correctly assessed, the injury linked to his diagnosis with Bipolar Disorder type-1 (the old “manic depressive disorder”).  Clinicians distinguish between type 1 and type 2 Bipolar thus: (1) In Bipolar I disorder there must be at least one manic episode that may come before or after hypomanic or major depressive episodes (in some cases, mania may cause a dissociation from reality (psychosis)) and (2) In Bipolar II disorder there must be at least one depressive episode and at least one hypomanic episode but never any psychosis.  (Cyclothymic Disorder involves periods of hypomania and depression not sufficiently severe to be classified as full episodes).  As Mr Ye explained: “Bipolar disorder comes with its own defense system. Denial.  When you’re manic, you don’t think you’re sick. You think everyone else is overreacting.  You feel like you’re seeing the world more clearly than ever, when in reality you’re losing your grip entirely.  Once people label you as ‘crazy’ you feel as if you cannot contribute anything meaningful to the world.  It’s easy for people to joke and laugh it off when in fact this is a very serious debilitating disease you can die from.”

As he further noted: “The scariest thing about this disorder is how persuasive it is when it tells you:  You don’t need help. It makes you blind, but convinced you have insight. You feel powerful, certain, unstoppable.  I lost touch with reality. Things got worse the longer I ignored the problem.  I said and did things I deeply regret.  Some of the people I love the most, I treated the worst. You endured fear, confusion, humiliation, and the exhaustion of trying to have someone who was, at times, unrecognizable. Looking back, I became detached from my true self.  In that fractured state, I gravitated toward the most destructive symbol I could find, the swastika, and even sold T-shirts bearing it. One of the difficult aspects of having bipolar type-1 are the disconnected moments - many of which I still cannot recall - that led to poor judgment and reckless behavior that oftentimes feels like an out-of-body-experience.  I regret and am deeply mortified by my actions in that state, and am committed to accountability, treatment, and meaningful change. It does not excuse what I did though. I am not a Nazi or an antisemite. I love Jewish people.”  He also included remarks intended explicitly for the black community, which he acknowledged “held [him] down through all of the highs and lows and the darkest of times.  The black community is, unquestionably, the foundation of who I am. I am so sorry to have let you down. I love us.  My words as a leader in my community have global impact and influence.  In my mania, I lost complete sight of that.”

He made a comment also about what is a sometimes misunderstood aspect of Bipolar Disorder: “Having bipolar disorder is notable state of constant mental illness.  When you go into a manic episode, you are ill at that point. When you are not in an episode, you are completely ‘normal’.  And that’s when the wreckage from the illness hits the hardest.  Hitting rock bottom a few months ago, my wife encouraged me to finally get help.  My words as a leader in my community have global impact and influence. In my mania, I lost complete sight of that.  As I find my new baseline and new center through an effective regime of medication, therapy, exercise and clean living, I have newfound, much-needed clarity. I am pouring my energy into positive, meaningful art: music, clothing, design and other new ideas to help the world.”  He concluded by saying: “I’m not asking for sympathy, or a free pass, though I aspire to earn your forgiveness.  I write today simply to ask for your patience and understanding as I find my way home.”  The message was signed “With love, Ye.”

Mr Ye with his wife, Australian architect & model Bianca Censori (b 1995) in “WET” themed top (which she wears well), Huacai Intercontinental Hotel, Beijing, China, September 2024.  Ms Censori works for Yeezy as an Architectural Designer.

What Mr Ye placed in the WSJ was a certain type of palinode, one in which there’s a retraction and definitely an apology but also an explanation.  Although, commendably, he included the words “…It does not excuse what I did…”, documenting the long-undiagnosed traumatic brain injury does provide an explanation for his conduct so, the piece is not a true mea culpa (from the Latin meā culpā (through my fault) and taken from the Confiteor, a traditional penitential prayer in Western Christianity; it’s best translated as “I am to blame”.  Mr Ye’s point was that what he did was wrong but “he” was not to blame in the sense that what he did was the result of the Bipolar Disorder induced by his injury.  What that means is that there was no mens rea (a construct from the Latin mēns + reus (literally “guilty mind”), the phrase a clipping of the precept in English common law: Actus non facit reum nisi mens rea sit (The act does not make a person guilty unless the mind is also guilty).  In other words: “I didn’t do it, the Bipolar Disorder did it”.  As a defence the approach is well-known but what Mr Ye is suggesting is supported in the medical literature, there being a number of documented cases of individuals whose behavior suddenly and radically changed for the worse as a result of a condition affecting the brain (either traumatic injury or an illness such as a tumor).  Despite his caveat, his diagnosed Bipolar Disorder, as well as explaining things, may well “excuse what I did”.

However, as an exercise in “reputational recovery” (one of the forks of “crisis management”), Mr Ye does have “a bit of previous” for which to atone including donning a “White Lives Matter” T-shirt which was controversial because there is no political or moral equivalence between that and the implications of “Black Lives Matter”.  In isolation, such a thing might have been thought just a publicity device and, in another time, the dark irony may have caught on in sections of the black community but in the atmosphere of 2022 it was the wrong item at the wrong time.  Worse was to come because later that year Mr Ye tweeted he was going “death con 3” on the Jews, the play on words assumed an adaptation of the DEFCON (Defense Readiness Condition) status levels used by the US military:

DEFCON 5: Normal peacetime readiness (lowest level).

DEFCON 4: Increased intelligence gathering and strengthened security.

DEFCON 3: Heightened readiness; forces ready for increased alert.

DEFCON 2: One step from nuclear war; forces ready to deploy at six hours notice.

DEFCON 1: Maximum readiness; imminent nuclear war or attack underway.

Fashion statement: Mr Ye in black capirote.

So it could have been worse, assuming his “death con 3” implied only “heightened readiness; forces ready for increased alert”.  The Pentagon invoked DEFCON 2 during the Cuban Missile Crisis (16-28 October 1962) and has never (as far as is known) triggered DEFCON 1.  However, “death con 3” was thought bad enough and a number of corporations sundered their contractual arrangements with Mr Ye, the loss of the agreement with Adidas believed financially the most damaging.  The next year, to his “Vultures album (re-titled Vultures 1 for the packaged release in 2024) listening party” Mr Ye wore a black Ku Klux Klan hood.  The use of black rather the while of the KKK in popular imagination attracted some comment from those who seek meaning in such things but it was historically authentic, the original, Reconstruction-era Klan (1865-1871) not having a standardized or even defined garb.  In the 1860s, members used whatever fabric was available, bed-sheets, blankets, sackcloth, and women’s dresses all re-purposed with no apparent interest in patterns or color co-ordination and animal hides or even face paint were used if no fabric was to hand.  The choices were pragmatic, the purposes concealment and intimidation, not visual uniformity.  The now familiar capirote (pointed hood) atop a white robe didn’t become emblematic of the KKK until the heyday of the so-called “Second Klan” between 1915 and the 1940s and although white deliberately was chosen as a symbol of “purity” and white supremacy, there’s nothing to suggest Mr Ye was seeking to vest his garment with similar denotations.

Fashion statement: Mr Ye in the now deleted “Swastika T-shirt” (the Yeezy part-number was HH01). 

Most provocative however was doubtlessly his adoption of the swastika for various purposes and his effuse praise for Hitler and Nazism.  In humanity’s long and depressing roll-call of evil and depravity, there is Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) and there is “everybody else” so selling “swastika T-shirts” at US$20 (promoted in an advertisement at the 2025 Super Bowl) and “dropping a tune” titled Heil Hitler was never likely to be a good career move.  The product code for the T-shirts was “HH01” and those who recalled his comment: “There’s a lot of things that I love about Hitler" in a December 2022 podcast with the since bankrupted host Alex Jones (b 1974) probably deconstructed that to mean “Heil Hitler” although to remove any doubt he also tweeted: “I love Hitler” and “I'm a Nazi”.  Swastika T-shirts were just too much for Shopify which took down the page, issuing a statement saying Mr Ye had “violated” the company's T&Cs (terms & conditions).  It was an example of the dangers inherent in having a site administered by AI with humans checking the content only in reaction to complaints.

Forbes magazine, 31 August 2019.  Forbes had just anointed Mr Ye a “billionaire”.

Those with some generosity of spirit will attribute honorable motives to Mr Ye’s palinode while cynics will note the financial hit suffered as a consequence of his recent conduct.  In 2020, he complained to Forbes magazine it had neglected to include him on their much-anticipated “Billionaires List” (he may have been peeved his then wife (the estimable Kim Kardashian (b 1980)) had made the cut) and duly the publication re-crunched its numbers, including him in a revised edition.  In the wake of his troubles, Forbes “wrote down” the value of his brand and after the “Adidas fallout”, he didn’t appear on the 2023 list.  As he said in the WSJ advertisement, he is “pouring my energy into positive, meaningful art: music, clothing, design and other new ideas to help the world” and all these products, appropriately branded, need to be sold at a profit but having a brand tainted by an association with Nazism and anti-Semitism makes things a “harder sell”.  Hopefully, all will be forgiven and Yeezy-branded hoodies, running shoes and such will again ship in volume; Rupert Murdoch can be proud of the WSJ’s latest contribution to American commerce.

Janus

Janus (pronounced jey-nuhs)

(1) In Roman mythology, a god of doorways (and thus also of beginnings), and of the rising and setting of the sun, usually represented as having one head with two bearded faces back to back, looking in opposite directions, historically understood as the past and the future.

(2) When used attributively, to indicate things with two faces or aspects; or made of two different materials; or having a two-way action.

(3) In zoology, a diprosopus (two-headed) animal.

(4) In chemistry, used attributively to indicate an azo dye with a quaternary ammonium group, frequently with the diazo component being safranine.

(5) In astronomy, a moon of the planet Saturn, located just outside the rings.

(6) In figurative use, a “two-faced” person; a hypocrite.

(7) In numismatics, (as Janus coin),a coin minted with a head on each face.

(8) In architecture, as the jānus doorway, a style of doorway, archway or arcade, the name derived from the Roman deity Iānus (Janus) being the god of doorways.

Mid-late 1500s: From the Latin Iānus (the ancient Italic deity Janus), to the Romans of Antiquity, the guardian god of portals, doors, and gates; patron of beginnings and endings.  The Latin Iānus (literally “gate, arched passageway”) may be from the primitive Indo-European root ei- (to go), the cognates including the Sanskrit yanah (path) and the Old Church Slavonic jado (to travel).  In depictions, Janus is shown as having two faces, one in front the other in back (an image thought to represent sunrise and sunset reflect his original role as a solar deity although it represents also coming and going in general, young and old or (in recent years) just about anything dichotomous).  The doors of the temple of Janus were traditionally open only during the time of war and closed to mark the end of the conflict, the origins of allusions to the “temple of Janus” being used metaphorically to mean conflict or wartime and the month of January is named after Janus, the link being to “the beginning of the year”.  The most commonly used forms are Janus-faced & Janus-headed while specialized uses include Janus cat (a cat with diprosopus (a condition in which part of the face is duplicated on the head)) and Janus particle (in nanotechnology and physics, a spherical microscopic particle which has hemispheres with sharply differing properties, such as one hydrophilic hemisphere and one hydrophobic hemisphere).  Janus is a noun or proper noun and Janus-like, janian, janiform & januform are adjectives.

Prosthetic in studio (left), Ralph Fiennes (b 1962) on-set in character (centre) and Peter Dutton (b 1970; leader of the opposition and leader of the Liberal Party of Australia 2022-2025) imagined in the same vein (right).

The prosthetic used in the digitally-altered image (right) was a discarded proposal for the depiction of Lord Voldemort in the first film version of JK Rowling's (b 1965) series of Harry Potter children's fantasy novels; it used a Janus-like two-faced head.  It's an urban myth Peter Dutton auditioned for the part when the first film was being cast but was rejected as being "too scary".  If ever there's another film, the producers could do worse than to cast him and should Mr Dutton not resume (God Forbid) his political career, he could bring to Voldemort the sense of menacing evil the character has never quite achieved, fine though Mr Fiennes' performance surely was.  Interestingly, despite many opportunities, Mr Dutton has never denied being a Freemason.

Roman cast bronze coin from the aes grave series, circa 225-217 BC; it shows the bearded head of Janus opposite the prow of a war galley.

In the lushly populated pantheon of Roman gods, Janus (Iānus) was one of the oldest, represented with two faces, one looking forwards and the other backwards (ie artistically, to the left & right).  In some of the myths, Janus was a native of Rome where, at some point, he ruled with Camesus while others claimed he came from Thessaly and ended up in Rome as an exile, welcomed there by Camesus, who shared his kingdom with him.  He ruled alone after the death of his host and in many tales Janus built a city on a hill (consequently called Janiculum as would have been the convention).  He had come to Italy with his wife (Camasenea or Camise) and the best known of their children was Tiberinus.  Janus received Saturn when he was driven from Greece by Jupiter, Saturn ruling over Saturnia, a village situated on the heights of the capitol.  By consensus, it seems that during the reign of Janus people unfailingly were honourable & honest (the stories from Antiquity are well-named as “myths”) and there was universal peace and prosperity.  While trade was as old as humanity and it’s clear there had been various means of exchange, it’s Janus who is credited with inventing “money” in the modern sense in which currency is understood, the oldest known Roman bronze Roman coins cast with an effigy of Janus on one side and the prow of a boat on the reverse.  Where the myth-tellers differ is whether the “civilizing” of the first natives of Latium can be attributed to Janus or Saturn but upon his death he was deified so there was some sense of gratitude.

The fate of Tarpeia, pressed (bludgeoned in some stories) to death by the shields of the Sabines.

In the way the myths did tend to multiply, other legends became attached to his memory, the most famous being the events which transpired after Romulus and his companions had carried off the Sabine women, prompting Titus Tatius and the Sabines to attack the city.  One night, driven by her lust for Tatius, the treacherous Tarpeia delivered the citadel into the hands of the Sabines but rather than wedding her as he had promised, Tatius had her put to death on the very Roman basis: “nobody likes a snitch”.  His soldiers had already scaled the heights of the Capitol when Janus launched a jet of hot water which put them to flight; to commemorate this military miracle, it was decreed that in time of war the door of the Temple of Janus should always be left open so in times of trouble the god could come to the aid of the Romans.  It was closed only if the Roman Empire was at peace.  Janus was said also to have married the Nymph Juturna who gave him a son, the god Fontus (or Fons).

(John) Foster Dulles (1888–1959; US Secretary of State 1953-1959, left) with Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969; US POTUS 1953-1961, right), Washington DC, 1955.

The terms “Janus-faced” or “Janus-headed” are used in engineering an architecture to describe designs where the “face” or “head” of an object or shape is duplicated but the idea usually is applied to people.  To speak of someone as being “two faced” is to suggest, variously, they’re deceitful, duplicitous or hypocritical.  Many have been damned (and sometimes even admired) as “two-faced” but on one occasion, after someone had observed Foster Dulles was “a bit two-faced” about something, Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) responded he couldn’t be because “…if he had two faces, he wouldn’t use that one.”  During his not infrequent criticisms of Dulles, habitually Churchill would speak of his “great slab of a face” although in retirement the old enmities (mostly) were forgotten and in May 1959 he visited him in his hospital room in Washington DC.  The two had “a pleasant chat” and within a fortnight Dulles was dead.

Noses down: In the Berghof on the Obersalzberg on 21 June 1939, Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments & war production 1942-1945, (left) and Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945, right) study plans for Linz's new opera house (photograph by Heinrich Hoffmann (1885–1957; Nazi court photographer), Bavarian State Library's Fotoarchiv Hoffmann.

Sometimes, such realizations, literal or figurative, come too late.  In the entry Speer made on 30 November 1946 in his clandestine prison diary (Spandauer Tagebücher (Spandau: The Secret Diaries) (1975)) is the passage: “Once again I am obsessed by the thought of Hitler’s two faces, and that for so long a time I did not see the second behind the first.  It was only toward the end, during the last months, that I suddenly became aware of the duality; and, significantly, my insight was connected with an aesthetic observation: I suddenly discovered how ugly, how repellent and ill proportioned, Hitler’s face was. How could I have overlooked that for so many years?”  Clearly, such thoughts stayed with him because on 8 December 1953 he noted: “Last night I had the following dream: In a rather sizable group, sometime toward the end of the war, I declare that everything is lost, that there is no longer a chance and the secret weapons do not exist.  The others in the dream remain anonymous. Suddenly Hitler emerges from their midst I am afraid that he will have heard my remark and may order my arrest.  My anxiety increases because Hitler’s retinue displays extreme iciness.  Nobody says a word to me.  Suddenly the scene changes.  We are in a house on a slope, with a narrow driveway.  Only gradually do I realize that it is Eva Braun’s [Eva Hitler (née Braun; 1912–1945)] house.  Hider comes to tea, sits facing me, but remains frosty and forbidding.  He chews the comers of his fingernails, as he so often did.  There are bloody places where they are bitten down to the quick.  Looking into his swollen face, I realize for the first time that perhaps Hitler wore his moustache in order to divert attention from his excessively large, ill-proportioned nose.  Now I am afraid that I will be arrested any moment because I have perceived the secret of his nose.  Heart pounding, I wake up.”

An eighteenth century carving of Janus in the style of a herm.

A part of the etymological legacy of the Roman Empire, the name Janus appears in several European languages.  In Danish (from the Latin Iānus), it’s a Latinization of the Danish given name Jens.  In Faroese, it’s a male given name which begat (1) Janussson or Janusarson (son of Janus) and (2) Janusdóttir or Janusardóttir (daughter of Janus).  In Estonian it’s a male given name.  In Polish, it’s both a masculine & feminine surname (the feminine surname being indeclinable (a word that is not grammatically inflected).  There is no anglicized form of the Latin name Janus.  Although it was never common and is now regarded by most genealogy authorities as "rare", when used in the English-speaking world the spelling remain "Janus".  Often, when Latin names were adopted in English, even when the spelling was unaltered, there were modifications to suit local phonetics but Janus is pronounced still just as it would have been by a Roman.

Tristar pictures used the Janus motif in promotional material for I Know Who Killed Me (2007).  Not well-received upon release, it's since picked up a cult following.

Dating from the 1580s, was from the Latin ianitor (doorkeeper, porter), from ianua (door, entrance, gate), the construct being ianus (arched passageway, arcade" + tor (the agent suffix).  The meaning “usher in a school” and later “doorkeeper” emerged in the 1620s white the more specific (and in Scotland and North America enduring) sense of “a caretaker of a building, man employed to attend to cleaning and tidiness” seems first to have been documented in 1708 (the now unused feminine forms were janitress (1806) & janitrix (1818).  Why janitor survived in general use in Scotland and North America and not elsewhere in the English-speaking world is a mystery although the influence of US popular culture (film and television) did see something of a late twentieth century revival and in  sub-cultures like 4chan and other places which grew out of the more anarchic bulletin boards of the 1980s & 1990s, a janitor is the (often disparaging) term for a content moderator for a discussion forum.

Augustus Orders the Closing of the Doors of the Temple of Janus (circa 1681), oil on canvas by Louis de Boullogne (1654–1733), Rhode Island School of Design Museum.

Among the more annoying things encountered by those learning English are surely Janus words, those with opposite meanings within themselves.  Examples include:  Hew can mean cutting something down or adhering closely to it.  Sanction may mean “formal approval or permission” or “an official ban, penalty, or deterrent”.  Scan can mean “to look slowly and carefully” or “quickly to glance; a cursory examination”.  Inflammable, which many take to mean “easy to burn” but the treachery of the word lies in the in- prefix which is often used as a negative, with the result that inflammable can be deconstructed as “not flammable”.  Trip can (and usually does) suggest clumsiness but can also imply some nimbleness or lightness of foot, as in the saying “trip the light fantastic”.  Oversight is a particularly egregious example.  To exercise oversight over someone or something is provide careful, watchful supervision yet an oversight is an omission or mistake.  In the ever-shifting newspeak of popular culture, the creation of the janus-word is often deliberate.  Filth can mean “of the finest quality”, wicked can mean “very good” and in the way which might have pleased George Orwell (1903-1950) "bad" has become classic “newspeak” (coined by Orwell for Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) and used now to describe ambiguous, misleading, or euphemistic words, used deliberately to deceive, typically by politicians, bureaucrats or corporations).  “Bad weed” can mean the drug was either of fine or poor quality depending on the sentence structure: “that was bad weed” might well suggest it was of not good while “man, that was some bad weed” probably means it was good indeed.  Saying nice now seems rarely to mean what dictionaries say nice has come to mean but can variously describe something wonderful, appalling or disgusting.