θεός νύ τις ἦ βροτός ἐσσι;

[sovay]

I like Robin Williamson's "Fool's Song (Columbine)," but I really wish he had included the verses Hope Mirrlees wrote for Lud-in-the-Mist (1926).

"There are windfalls of dreams, there's a wolf in the stars,
And Life is a nymph who will never be thine,
With lily, germander, and sops in wine.
With sweet-brier,
And bon-fire,
And strawberry-wire,
And columbine."

My poem "Leukothea's Odyssey 6" has been accepted by Goblin Fruit.

Comments

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

All of this is wonderful and energizing to read; thank you. I like the quality of your thought, very much, and if you decided at some point to devote more of your writing time to critical works in the field (perhaps you already have or do!) I have no doubt the field would benefit thereby. (It's a conundrum I face: is it better that I forgo critical writing to spend more time working in more explicitly creative genres, or -- ? I wonder to what extent you wrestle with that.) It will take a while to absorb (you cover a great deal of ground quite succinctly), but I have printed out your replies and archived them for both immediate and later reference; and later I will reply at greater length.

As for the Bible, I have the Oxford Jewish Study Bible, which uses the JPS Tanakh (a fine translation for sure), and Robert Alter's translations of Torah, Samuel, and Psalms. Alter is awesome! The translations are beautiful (and it seems highly idiomatic; his reputation as a scholar of Hebrew is sterling) and his essays and annotations are superb. I envy your ability to read the gospels in the original Greek. I have Willis Barnstone's translation of the gospels, which I like very much, though I prefer to read them with traditional forms of pronouns restored. I also have Richmond Lattimore's New Testament, and about 25 other English translations, 16 of them in just two Oxford volumes of parallel NT's. I have an ambition to write a new "translation" of Mark, my favorite of the canonical gospels. (I urgently recommend John Carroll's profoundly heretical -- and I mean that as the most soulful compliment -- midrash on Mark, The Existential Jesus.)