Las Monedas del Perú

(Artículo de Wikipedia)



The Spanish dollar (also known as "pieces of eight" or the eight real coin) is actually the silver coin, worth eight reales, that was minted in the Spanish Empire after a Spanish currency reform in 1497. It was legal tender in the United States until an Act of the United States Congress discontinued the practice in 1857. Through widespread use in the Americas and the Far East, it was nearly a world currency by the late 18th century. Many existing currencies, such as the Canadian dollar, United States dollar and the Chinese yuan, are based on the Spanish dollar.
Today the term peso is sometimes used interchangeably to include the historic Spanish eight real coin. This is primarily because pesos were of similar weight and diameter to the eight real coin. However the term peso did not appear on Spanish coinage until 1864, and it is more accurate to refer to the older coinage as the eight real coin, which was also called the Spanish dollar or colloquially "pieces of eight."
The Coinage Act of 1792 created the United States Mint, but the first U.S. dollars were not as popular as the Spanish dollars, which were heavier and were made of finer silver. An eight real coin nominally weighed 550.209 Spanish grains, which is 423.900 troy/avoirdupois grains (0.883125 troy ounce or 27.468 grams), .93055 fine: so contained 0.821791 troy ounce (25.560 grams) fine silver. Its weight and purity varied significantly between mints and over the centuries. In contrast, the Coinage Act of 1792 specified that the U.S. dollar would contain 371 4/16 grain (24.1 g) pure or 416 grain (27.0 g) standard silver.
The coins had a nominal value of eight reales ("royals"). The coins were often physically cut into eight "bits", or sometimes four quarters, to make smaller change. This is the origin of the colloquial name pieces of eight for the coin, and of "quarter" and "two bits" for twenty-five cents in the United States.
Prior to the American Revolution there was, due to British mercantilist policies, a chronic shortage of British currency in its colonies. Trade was often conducted using Spanish dollars. Spanish coinage was legal tender in the United States until an Act of Congress discontinued the practice in 1857. The pricing of equities on U.S. stock exchanges in 1/8 dollar denominations persisted until the New York Stock Exchange converted to pricing in sixteenths of a dollar on June 24, 1997, to be followed shortly after by decimal pricing.
Long tied to the lore of piracy, "pieces of eight" were manufactured in the Americas and transported in bulk back to Spain (to pay for wars and various other things), making them a very tempting target for seagoing pirates. Some pirates were among the richest people in the world. The Manila Galleon transported Mexican silver to Manila, where it would be exchanged for Chinese goods, since silver was the only foreign commodity China would take. In oriental trade, Spanish dollars were often stamped with Chinese characters known as "chop marks" which indicate that that particular coin had been assayed by a well-known merchant and determined genuine.
Thanks to the vast silver deposits that were found in Mexico (for example, at Taxco and Zacatecas) and Potosí in modern-day Bolivia, and to silver from Spain's possessions throughout the Americas, mints in Mexico and Peru also began to strike the coin.
Millions of Spanish dollars were minted over the course of several centuries. They were among the most widely circulating coins of the colonial period in the Americas, and were still in use in North America and in South-East Asia in the 19th century. They had a value of one dollar when circulating in the United States.
The coin is roughly equivalent to the silver thaler issued in Bohemia and elsewhere since 1517. The German name "thaler" (pronounced "tah-ler" — and "dahler" in Low German) became dollar in French and English.

Maximario Crepuscular

¿Es ahora cuando adviene de verdad el Occidente, la tierra del crepúsculo?
¿Somos nosotros los que actualmente vivimos, occidentales en el sentido que se revela por nuestra marcha hacia la noche del mundo?¿Somos,en verdad, los rezagados como nuestro nombre lo indica? ¿O somos los precoces de una nueva edad del mundo totalmente distinta?

Heidegger

Breve Historia del Cenobio de Mojave

Esa noche calurosa de marzo, poco entusiasmado, veía Oscar Blanco las noticias del días. Le habían parecido bastante aburridas y monótonas, las declaraciones del ministro británico, que no podía ocultar su desesperación ante el inminente fracaso de la conferencia internacional que iba a tener lugar en Londres el próximo mes.
Tampoco le interesaron las declaraciones del director del Fondo Internacional a la televisión francesa, donde indicaba que el caos seguía avanzado en el mundo aunque ,le habían parecido algo gracioso las quejas del organizador de la conferencia: nadie le contestaba el teléfono en la Casa Blanca.

¿Reparo, el misterioso monje, en las reacciones del Tribunal que escucho el discurso de defensa del demonio Madoff? Probablemente; en su Breve Historia del Cenobio de Mojave , Dwightor Doñez, nos indica con claridad que al misterioso moneje siempre le interesaron esos menesteres.

Cuando apagó la televisión que había comprado con una rebaja de 99,9 por ciento en el Centro Comercial que acababa de quebrar, en vez de perder su tiempo en el Internet rebatiendo los vanos argumentos de los teístas y de los nuevos discípulos del mostruoso Leviathan, prefirió leer la extraordinarios libros de poesía visionaria que le había regalado el administrador de la librería Barness y Nobell.

Aunque los hijos de la Tierra de los Angeles ,nunca han producido ninguna filosofía que cautive el alma, pocos pueblos han podido producir una poesía que se pueda comparar con la inglesa. Conocía Oscar porque había leído los Cantos de Homero , que los griegos compartían esa opinión , ¿no viajaba,acaso, Apolo, todos los años a la misteriosa Thule? ¿No consiguió Wotan , la cabeza de Mimir en una brumosa isla de Escocia?

Por eso, cada mes , el monje misterioso releía con empeño los poderosos versos de tan distinguido poetas. Y, cada vez que lo hacía, descubría nuevos y pervesos trucos.

En los giros superiores del remolino que crece, vuelan las primeras palomas rapaces;
van hacia los espacios abiertos en busqueda del Alma del Mundo,
con cada vuelta que hacen desbaratan el centro;
ya no escuchan la órdenes del pajarero maestro,
Disminuye el control , el caos se esparce.
Los peores rebosan de pasión,
los mejores no tienen convicción
Sopla el Viento que lo barre todo,
Ahoga la ceremonio de la Inocencia
las aguas abisales de la Ola que supera la costa.

No hay Duda, la Relevelación se acerca,
No hay Duda, ya viene el Segundo Adviento,
¡El Segundo Adviento!
Del Espíritu del Mundo, desciende esta inmesa imagen,
revientan mis ojos, apenas he dicho eso,
turbia visión: sobre las arenas desiertas,
con cabeza de hombre y cuerpo de león,
mirada vacía , cruel como el sol,
mueve su lentos músculos, la bestia.
En torno a ella , girando y girando,
aparecen las tiesa sombras de aves feroces
Ahora ya sé, que después de viente siglos,
se hace la noche, llegada la hora,
¿que bestia se arrastra hacia Belen para nacer?

Después de leer estos versos de Yeast, el misterioso monje se fue a dormir. Al día siguiente, en Mojave, los mexicanos que había ido a ver la virgen que se aparece en esos lugares, pudieron ver cómo se reunían los monjes.

Dwightor Doñez , nos dice que no consiguieron sobrevivir, en el lugar donde vivieron dejaron algunos libros, y , en el muro que protegía su cenobio esculpieron , para que duren, sus últimos sueños, y, luego se esfumaron. Desde ese día, el único ruido que se escucha en el mundo es el murmullo del mar que bate la costa que se encuentra a cierta distancia del monasterio que fundaron.


P.D. Me he tomado ciertas libertadades al traducir el poema original. Versión en inlgés:

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are these words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thigs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Autor , Yeats, poeta irlandes.