In an act of public service to headline writers, I browsed Milton’s Paradise Lost for alternatives to the word “chaos” (All in a day’s debacle: 24 hours that undid Liz Truss, 20 October). There, on the brink of hell, “where eldest Night / And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold / Eternal anarchy” with their companions “Rumour next, and Chance / And Tumult and Confusion, all embroiled, / And Discord with a thousand various mouths”, I found “the dreaded name / Of Demogorgon”.
Though easily confused with demagogue (no relation), it turns out that this character is probably an early scribal corruption of the powerful “demiurge”, so possessing too much intention really to stand for chaos. In fact, says the art historian Jean Seznec, “Demogorgon is a grammatical error, become god.”
Well, Liz Truss is a moral and economic error become PM, and chaos too kind a word to be used for this self-styled disruptor, so maybe Demogorgon comes close. But note that the dreaded Demogorgon is not required for chaos still to reign. It is to be hoped that her whole party can soon join her in Milton’s “nethermost Abyss”, and ordinary political disorder is restored.
Dr Adrian Paterson
University of Galway
• Might the UK in 2022 yet rival AD69 in Rome, the Year of the Four Emperors? Nero had been bumped off in late 68 to be followed by Galba, assassinated in favour of Otho, who was dispatched to make way for Vitellius, leaving Vespasian finally to clean up in December, bringing 10 years of relative peace and stability to Rome.
Methods of dispatch may now be less violent, and pitched battles restricted, so far, to scuffles in the Commons division lobbies. But the head count could be the same.
George Smith
Oxford
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