Plus my only natural talent's wasted

[sovay]

I sat down to write up this weekend and the bits and pieces of news that I've been reminding myself to report since last Thursday, but my brain has gone to slurry.* Consequently, I am forced to fall back on other people's brains for my entertainment. Don't let me down here.

So. I saw this done once with icons. If you want to comment on this post, you must do so in quotation. If you want to respond to a comment, you must do so in quotation. Prose, poetry, film, television, song lyrics, academic criticism, all are fair game; the language is likewise left to your discretion, although I cannot promise that you won't be asked to provide translations. Neither will I stipulate that you must be able to identify the quotation to which you are responding, although more power to you if you can. Quote characters who are already speaking in quotation, if you feel like it.** Now watch a total radio silence fall.

"Is anybody there?" said the Traveler . . .

*I blame this partly on the fact that I'm reading what must be the perkiest whaler's journal ever. A sample entry: December 10. Saturday. Set in, bright & beautiful! 9 AM raised "Right Whales!!!!!" Lowered! The Larboard Boat went on & struck a fine one! He tried hard to get away but the lance "hurt his feelings" and in consequence, he was a dead whale at 22 AM!! 3 PM Cut in. 7 PM Boiling! You think I'm making those exclamation points up.

**And if you are Pamela Dean, you should properly be started with a handicap . . .

Comments

[zdenka]

Love ye who list, I force him not.

[larryhammer]

But every modern god will now extend
His vast prerogative as far as Jove.
To rage, to lust, to write to, to commend,
All is the purlieu of the god of love.

[sovay]

I cant help it. When you strike that noble attitude and speak in that thrilling voice, I admire you; but I find it impossible to believe a single word you say.

[larryhammer]

Thou art so true that thoughts of thee suffice
To make dreams truths, and fables histories.

[sovay]

. . . Bravo. Is that
A world you've got there, hidden under your hat?

[larryhammer]

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.

[sovay]

It's more an exercise than anything else. My abstract course is set.

[larryhammer]

Love’s not so pure, and abstract as they use
To say, which have no mistress but their Muse.

[sovay]

And it all breaks down at the role reversal
Got the muse in my head and she's universal

[zdenka]

Quid, si praeripiat flavae Venus arma Minervae,
ventilet accensas flava Minerva faces?
Quis probet in silvis Cererem regnare iugosis
lege pharetratae virginis arva coli?
Crinibus insignem quis acuta cuspide Phoebum
instruat, Aoniam Marte moventeque lyram?
Sunt tibi magna, puer, nimiumque potentia regna:
cur opus adfectas ambitiose novum?

[very loose translation follows:]

What if Minerva stole the torch
That kindles lovers' rages,
While Venus donned her flashing helm
And shook the dreadful aegis?

Who would send Ceres to the woods
With bow and quiver laden,
Or let the fields be tended by
The quiver-bearing maiden?

Should Phoebus, with his flowing locks,
To shield and spear aspire,
And Mars apply his warlike hands
To Phoebus' graceful lyre?

Your kingdoms, boy, are great enough;
There's no need to extend them . . .

[sovay]

Old and younger Gods are buried or begotten
From uprising to downsetting of thy sun,
Risen from eastward, fallen to westward and forgotten,
And their springs are many, but their end is one.
Divers births of godheads find one death appointed,
As the soul whence each was born makes room for each;
God by God goes out, discrowned and disanointed,
But the soul stands fast that gave them shape and speech.

[zdenka]

O Gods dethroned and deceased, cast forth, wiped out in a day,
From your wrath is the world released, redeemed from your chains, men say.
New Gods are crowned in the city; their flowers have broken your rods;
They are merciful, clothed with pity, the young compassionate Gods.
But for me their new device is barren, the days are bare;
Things long past over suffice, and men forgotten that were.

[sovay]

dimitto superos; summa uotorum attigi.

Forget the gods; I have reached my own prayers' height.

[zdenka]

Erige mihi templum dei quem observare possum; sit necne nihil refert.

Build me a temple to a god I can respect; it doesn't matter whether he exists or not.

[sovay]

If God is God He is not good,
If God is good He is not God;
Take the even, take the odd,
I would not sleep here if I could
Except for the little green leaves in the wood
And the wind on the water.

[zdenka]

God tolerates the intolerable; he is irresponsible and inconsistent. He is not a gentleman.

[sovay]

Of course, that is only sensible. We are a terrible lot, we have no fairness, no honor, no sense of proportion. How could you not hate us? . . . But we do have charm, and most of us are very social dancers.

[zdenka]

Thou hast, Sebastian, done good feature shame.
In Nature, there's no blemish but the mind;
none can be called deformed but the unkind.
Virtue is beauty, but the beauteous evil
are empty trunks o'erflourished by the devil.

[sovay]

Denn das Schöne ist nichts
als des Schrecklichen Anfang, den wir noch grade ertragen,
und wir bewundern es so, weil es gelassen verschmäht,
uns zu zerstören. Ein jeder Engel ist schrecklich.

Because beauty is nothing
but the beginning of a terror we can barely endure,
and we wonder at it so, because it casually disdains
to destroy us. Every angel is terrifying.

[zdenka]

Auch das Schöne muß sterben! Das Menschen und Götter bezwinget,
nicht die eherne Brust rührt es des stygischen Zeus.
Einmal nur erweichte die Liebe den Schattenbeherrscher,
und an der Schwelle noch, streng, rief er zurück sein Geschenk.

Even beauty must perish! That which masters men and gods
does not touch the iron heart of Stygian Zeus.
Once only, love moved the Lord of the Shades,
and, on the very threshold, the stern god recalled his boon.

[sovay]

The gods gave me that gift—when they kept back everything else I wanted.

[zdenka]

O don fatale, o don crudel,
che in suo furor mi fece il cielo!

O fatal gift, cruel gift,
which heaven gave me in its anger!