I voted today! Make sure you vote too; it’s important!
I’m not sure when I first saw Rodin’s sculpture of the Burghers of Calais, but rarely have I been so blown away by a piece of art and the story behind it. I used to have a membership to the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena and always stopped at the statue when I was there.
If you don’t know the story, here’s the Wikipedia version:
In 1346, England’s Edward III, after victory in the Battle of Crécy, laid siege to Calais, while Philip VI of France ordered the city to hold out at all costs. Philip failed to lift the siege, and starvation eventually forced the city to parley for surrender.
The contemporary chronicler Jean Froissart (c. 1337 – c. 1405) tells a story of what happened next: Edward offered to spare the people of the city if six of its leaders would surrender themselves to him, presumably to be executed. Edward demanded they walk out wearing nooses around their necks, and carrying the keys to the city and castle. One of the wealthiest of the town leaders, Eustache de Saint Pierre, volunteered first, and five other burghers joined with him. Saint Pierre led this envoy of volunteers to the city gates. It was this moment, and this poignant mix of defeat, heroic self-sacrifice, and willingness to face imminent death which Rodin captured in his sculpture, scaled somewhat larger than life.
According to Froissart’s story, the burghers expected to be executed, but their lives were spared by the intervention of England’s queen, Philippa of Hainault, who persuaded her husband to exercise mercy by claiming their deaths would be a bad omen for her unborn child.
What does this have to do with voting? Well, one of the questions I ask myself when deciding where my vote is going is this: Do I believe this person would sacrifice themselves to save their city/state/nation as these men were willing to do?
Of the two major candidates running for POTUS this year, there is one I am quite sure would not.
Tuples and Attributes 