Perils of Perpetuity

Does Captain Jack Sparrow have to travel to the ends of the earth to find the elusive fountain of youth? Not really. Given the frequency of the sequels , the elixir may be packaged with the brand itself. In the latest installment, the wily pirate ...

Perils of Perpetuity
Does Captain Jack Sparrow have to travel to the ends of the earth to find the elusive fountain of youth? Not really. Given the frequency of the sequels , the elixir may be packaged with the brand itself. In the latest installment, the wily pirate and Barbossa embark on a quest for the mysterious elixir only to find that Blackbeard and his daughter are after it too.

When all the parties finally meet up to tangle and tango, along with Mad King George’s conscripts and ensigns, the Spaniards too land up as bigoted spoilers who apparently have no appetite for secular miracles! Suffice it to say Sparrow once again flies into the sunset with his newly emancipated sidekick, Gibbs, at the end of the movie. Suddenly, he’s become sane enough to keep his distance from the malarkey of miraculous youth.

That feat alone would mark him as a hero fit to rule for all time. For the Greeks and the Romans before him were quite clear about what curse immortality could be without youthfulness : Eos, the goddess of dawn, has a mortal lover called Tithonus. She asks for eternal life for her lover from Zeus, forgetting to ask for perpetual youth as well. Over the eons, Tithonus becomes so shrivelled that, tiring of him, Eos turns him into a cicada and shuts him up in a cage!

In another cautionary tale, Apollo grants Sibyl the prophetess a life of as many years as there are grains in a handful of sand. Without everlasting youth, the crone at last ends up in a bottle. In Satyricon , when the children ask Sibyl what she wants, all she says is, “I want to die!” Be careful of what you wish for.
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