Short Introduction:
His Sadomachiavellianness
The Prince-Archwhip of Canterfury
Philip Rodolphe Roderick Maximilian Ludovico Sferza Cropster-Jock de Whipster
Duc d'Ago du Beau de Jour
Kniaz Knut-Nagaika-Schtrangeloff
Marquis de Satire
Count of Words
Earl of Mountcanter
Vicomte de Cravache d’Or
Lord Rider of Whipping-super-Mare
Lord Whip-Cracking-Ringmaster of Bossey-Boots
Lord Whipdown of Whipperton
Lord Dom of Finland
Baron de Longnom de Plume
Baron of Foulmouth
Seigneur d'Ominant d'Onnant de Coups de Fouet de Noisy-de-Grand-aux-Bas d’Ass
Jonkheer van Schambock
21st Martinet Puss-in-Boots of Birching-Wittingley
Cavaliere Nerbo di Palio
Chevalier de Crack de Clavier
Grand Master of the Order of the White Birch of Finland
Knight of the Collar of the Equestrian Order of the Verbal Massacre
The Knight Commander of the Stallion Battalion
Knight of the Order of the Golden Crop
Dominus Cane of the Dominant Order
Cavalero of London
Roman Equestrian Knight Cavalier Justice
The Master of the Whip
etc., etc.
Thundering, riding furiously fast on a big, strong, hot-blooded, wonderful, diabolic monster of an Arabian stallion, a knight rider’s dream and nightmare – attractive, tall, slim, strong youthful rider, leather reins and classic European gentlemen’s bamboo riding crop with antler handle, or devil horn whip, firmly in his leather-gloved hand, in long polished black leather boots with spurs, emphasised by tight breeches and slim-cut jacket, all giving power to the tall, slim man and his beautiful figure and face, becoming even more powerful and commanding by mounting the big strong beast of a horse, and riding furiously fast, flamboyantly cracking in the air a hunting whip with deer horn handle and a long lash breaking the sound barrier with shock waves for horse whispering, the Canterfury Tail wind from the Editor of the Daily Tail, the Prince of Tails, the big head master heading faster, cropwind, echoing the lone Australian rider cracking his whip as heard all over the world at the very beginning of the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics in 2000.
Powerful, confident man in control of the strong animal he is riding, addicted by the sense of power and speed literally in the rider's face and the sense of flying fast high in the air on top of the big beast – the magnificent horse-power – Dom Filipe, Philip d’Evil, Philippe d’Iable, Philip the Handsome, Philip the Fair, Philip Mountbeaten of Mountbattery, John Vain, Nicolas Cane, John Whip, the Prince-Archwhip of Canterfury and Mountcanter, Lord Rider of Whipping-super-Mare, Cavaliere Nerbo di Palio, on his high horse – the unique sensation of fast speed and power one can experience nowhere else but riding a horse furiously fast by striking the balance of horse force.
Cracking rather than smacking or whacking, mindful of the welfare of the fine horse and despite all the extravagant showing off, mostly whispering of course and taking breaks to listen to the birds singing and the tranquillity of the countryside. For example, if one's horse is startled by some sudden noise like thunder or a vehicle or even a little rock kicked up by another horse, one can calm down the mount by a calm voice and communicating calm with the rider's whole body, a rapport of trust and friendship between horse and rider. The horse is quite used to even the louder noises from the riding maniac who barks rather than bites at least as far as the horse is concerned while the horse sometimes can give a kick and bite the rider who can be an angel on horseback or a devil on horseback, a chameleon, a lion riding a camel...
Still, no modern technology even has been able to create anything like equestrian speed. Cars and airplanes may go faster technically but their industrially processed speed cannot beat the excitement of the natural, handmade, manmade and mad, and above all horse made organic speed on horseback where the rider’s whole body is connected to the movement even in the rare event of the horse throwing off the rider to sense flying even further solo – from his high horse Converse hightops flying or shooting Superstar Original, Air Force One mid to low - Philippos Hippolytus.
Rider and horse sculpture at Emil Wikström's Visavuori
Whip also means a good rider, and words meaning knight in various mainly Latin languages originate from the rider. Cavalier derives from the Latin like the Italian word cavaliere, the French word chevalier (knight, horseman) and the Spanish word caballero (gentleman, knight). The Vulgar Latin caballarius means 'horseman'. Shakespeare used cavaleros to describe an overbearing swashbuckler or swaggering gallant in Henry IV where Shallow says, "I'll drink to... all the cavaleros about London" and in The Merry Wives of Windsor he is called 'cavaleiro-justice' (knightly judge) - cavalcad. Cavaliers were Royalists supporting King Charles I and King Charles II during the English Civil War – a satirical neo-cavalier could now assume a similar position in contemporary unified Britain, not least warming up for the third-time-earnest anticipated reign of King Charles III, with a Constitutional role as part of the Fourth Estate, flogging up issues for debate, from barrister's wig and pen to whip and pain. From a term of abuse by the Roundheads, the Royalists adopted it and later it became identified with the fashionable clothing of the court at the time. Le cavalier, c’est moi!
Pheme riding Pegasus on the Place de la Concorde, statue sculpted by Antoine Coysevox (1640 – 1720) – Pheme is related to the Greek word meaning "to speak" – in Greek mythology, Pheme is the personification of fame and renown, her favour being notability, her wrath being scandalous rumors.
Equitare, arcum tendere, veritatem dicere – ride on, aim straight, speak the truth, said Herodotus. A lazy or stubborn horse may need a little whip for speed or discipline, a mere signal largely. A reactionary society needs more than a little tongue-lashing to inspire progress, more than a signal to whip it into shape. The satirical cavalier may sound like a Field Master at a hunt shouting in need of an immediate response but no offense per se is intended.
Like fiction satire is more true than 'fact' because of the continuing popularity of false comfort of (self) deception and ignorance.
One can whip more and harder with one's writing than one's riding, writing and riding wit rather than riding whip, literal badinage, satirical horseplay, a tongue with the speed of a thoroughbred race horse, whip-smart, cruel wit rather than cruel whip, a hunting-whip-cracking country squire like Lord Alconleigh of Love-in-a-Cold-Climate reincarnated as a cosmopolitan satirical cavalier with some modern twists to further not fit into stereotypes, opinionated but free spirited, unafraid of disagreeing even with himself, open to question his own views... The word cynic comes from the Greek word for dog. So there we have the horse and hound hunting party of the satirical cavalier, whip for not only fools and horses.
For all the wit in the world, there are things for which there hardly is any word, je ne sais quoi!
Wit can be one's mother tongue, not least for a Cosmopolitan who may otherwise be unsure which of his or her languages is the mother tongue. (Indeed, what one's mother tongue even is can be somewhat complicated, as while one may inherit and learn from one's mother her first and last language, one's mother may also learn from oneself as a child the language of the country where one is growing up with a language other than the technical mother tongue...) If growing up with a witty mother peppery wit can be a hereditary disease in the family through a maternal line, and like other hereditary diseases, it can get worse with age. Some languages are even particularly developed for arguing and complaining like Russian, presumably because there has been so much to argue and complain about for so long in Russia. The Holy Roman Emperor Charles V said, "I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse."
Satire might be called a kind of universal lingua franca, a frank language and prank language, if one's French is excused, ice-breaking and division-busting humour, tongues of fire, although some people's sense of humour only starts where other people's sense of humour already ends. (A sense of humour can have the most fatal consequences, for example, it could make you attractive enough to end up in a life of marriage.) The more desperate the world problems are, the stronger the language, desperanto. Even swearing can be appropriate if used effectively which certainly does not include using swear words as frequently as commas as that would inflate the effect of swearing into mere common vulgarity. If one is intimately enough acquainted with totalitarianism, one's humour can become sharply macabre, going verbalistic.
While politicians preach hatred to divide, driving their whip full fear ahead, satirists need to preach humour to unite – cavalier horse wit to whip the horse sh*t from politicians. The satirist can be the real Chief Whip of politics, the stylish fox-hunting whipper-in. The satirist can be a whippersnapper Peter Pen, jock of all trades, a gardian devil, giving a fair crack to anyone within reach of his whip – left, right and centre – taking the devil by the horns, the cheek whip, horseboy battering banter, giving a kicking with either Sir Robert de Shurland's 'kicking' boots or more modern fashionable classic baseball boots or kicks, (word) Play Comme des Garçons Converse - boys will be boys (as opposed to Con verse but very much kick-ass the Con, getting a kick out of pitching for the penalty kicks).
One’s tongue and wit can be as sharp as a whip and ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’, now with electric shocks from the keyboard or clavier with potential for record-breaking sting to accompany the rappers’ beat, a satirical clavier concerto. The whip with long lash is apparently the first man-made instrument that broke the sound barrier. The whip can be as powerful in writing, a paper monster, papier-machette, in the hands of a Sadist desk jockey, the Machiavellian Prince of Letters, and when electrified, sends barrier-breaking shock waves sans frontières through the world wide web from the literary agent provocateur, the mounted messenger riding the waves, giving a ripping read, a ripping whipping.
But for all the dramatic might of the whip, whispering can be even greater an incentive but sometimes one may have to strike a balance between the two, the carrot and the stick – the whispering and the whip – as one or the other may not always work or too much or little of either can be bad. Like riding, life and the world are about maintaining a balance. The use of force may be a necessary evil but all the more it is important to minimise any use of force and only use it fairly. Old Polish wisdom has it that things are done by either sense or by force, wits or whips.
Sadomachiavellian satire should not however be misunderstood or confused with sadism any more than the Marquis de Sade, who was no sadist but wrote of sadist hypocrites that exist always left, right and centre, as Machiavelli was not Machiavellian in the common misconceived sense of purely ruthless but more of an honest and frank realist, while the world can nevertheless be controversial as to where exactly the often fine line between good and bad is drawn (with a whip or otherwise) is in an infinite number of situations.
The satirist's whip can also be as tender as a lover's whip, for example Whip Appeal of 1990 is a song by American musician Babyface, from his album Tender Lover – it does make perfect sense: whip appeal, tender love, baby face! Journalist John Leland described the song as "suggestive but not rude... the risqué love ballad that has eluded Prince the last few years." The lyrics include:
And no one does it like meAnd no one but youHas that kind of whip appeal on meKeep on whippin' on meWork it on meWhip all your sweet sweet lovin' on me...
The riding whip is a symbol of phallic power, the rearing stallion, striking a cord, with lovers going not only horse riding together and giving each other finely crafted whips with silver knobs and embossed initials and crests like Rudolph Valentino gave his horse riding companion Gloria Swanson as a birthday present a riding crop embossed with her initials and like Emma, Madame Bovary, gave her lover Rodolphe une forte belle cravache, Rodolphe being the lord of his manor and the master of his horses and women...
Love can show itself in many ways, and real love can be painful in a constructive and frank way, and satirist critique apart from humour is also meant to be constructive, whip into shape, even if like the whip wit is sometimes deservedly meant to hurt a little but not too much, striking a balance. The whip is not always mightier than the carrot. The satirist can enjoy playing with a collection of own leather whips including the tongue...
The Italian word nerbo, means not only the whip used by the jockeys in the famous and wonderful horse race of the Palio di Siena - a horse whip made of the dried skin of an ox penis, tendons that are intertwined together, but nerbo also means physical strength or bodily vigor, the strongest, most resistant and most effective element of something - "smart as a whip!"
Horse riding and especially horse racing have a similarity in physicality, rhythm and excitement with love-making, and in some sense also with a piece of writing and literature. The horse has also been a symbol of freedom to take the rider to freedom, not least among Black people in America.
Whipping can vary from anything and everything from reasonably proportionate and contained discipline and encouragement and arousing excitement and fascinating symbolism, striking a fair balance, between two powerful beasts, to abuse and extreme brutality beyond any excuse and the line between the two may be anything but clear or undisputed - like much else in the world of humans.
Yet we seem to live in a polarised age of extremes and total bans. Soon breadknives may be totally banned as someone could misuse one. Yet a moderate approach of the golden middle way work better than trying to prevent one extreme by its extreme opposite - the road to hell paved with good intentions.
In any event, no beating about the bush, let us crack it off and thrash it all out.
