4
slaughtered right there before them (in the most violent, inhumane, and unsanitary
of circumstances). Cruel because that is cruel—emblematic of our species’ insensate grip upon the majority of life forms; and, ironically, the cruelty, at the stage of
gene commingling into mutant virus bats, pangolins, mink, possibly other species;
a resulting global pandemic that infects humans, thus totally backfiring, at least for
our kind. But it is not the first time—nor will it be the last (the ultimate backfire is
yet to occur)—that a paradox of the most heinous and vile dimensions has suddenly
(seemingly) dominated the biosphere (Fig. 1.1).
1.2 Troubadours
It is by that amalgamation into a mere word, cruelty, Old French, “indifference
to, or pleasure taken in, the distress or suffering of any sentient being”,
1
stemming
etymologically from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, that we perforce from the
1 https://www.etymonline.com/word/cruelty
Fig. 1.1 A Troubadour:
“Nature instructing the
Poet,” from a M.S. in the
King’s Library in Paris.
(Reproduced from Costello
and Pickering,
3 Private
Collection, Frontispiece,
Photo © M.C.Tobias)
1 Introduction