as told by Clifford Geertz:
There is an Indian story–at least I heard it as an Indian story–about an Englishman who, having been told that the world rested on a platform which rested on the back of an elephant which rested in turn on the back of a turtle, asked what did the turtle rest on? Another turtle. And that turtle? “Ah, Sahib, after that it is turtles all the way down.”
yes, but not turtles, metaphors . . . all the way down