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editor
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 Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 10:47 am Post subject: Ancient Greece |
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Ancient Greece
Life With Mother
Hardcover
By Clarence Day
| Quote: | Ted died at the end of the book, just before his twelfth birthday. Very good children often did die on the last page, I had noticed. They never anything violent or awful the matter with them, they just took sick and expired very gently of some vague and unnamed disease.
"I would have liked to tell how Ted grew up into such as his boyhood promised," Mrs. Molesworth explained. "But, dears, I cannot tell you this, for it was not to be so."
I didn't like books with unhappy endings, but I didn't mind this one. It seemed sad, in a way, and yet suitable. I regarded it with much the same feelings that I later regarded Greek tragedies. The Olympian deities in their hate stacked the cards against OEdipus, and Jehovah and Mrs. Molesworth did the same thing to Ted, out of love. It was a comfort to feel that Heaven neither loved nor hated me yet, and I earnestly hoped that it never would. I felt pretty sure that I could get along all right by myself, if Heaven would ignore my existence and let me alone. (From the chapter, Noble Boys, at pgs. 65-66) |
The charming Clarence Day on literature's great martyrs.
Day himself, as it turns out, was something of a martyr. For the sake of its elogquence - and Day's - we include this brief obituary from the inside flap of our 1937 edition of Life With Mother:
| Quote: | The death of Clarence Day on December 28, 1935, was not only a loss to American literature; he was an example of courage and integrity such as we can ill afford to spare. Fore more than thirty-five years Mr. Day was an invalid suffering from arthritis. Yet during all those years he not only enjoyed a rich creative life, but maintained a wide circle of distringuished friends with whom he carried on lengthy conversations and correspondence, with never a hint of his suffering. He did, in a sense, conquer his disabilities, for he made them a minor aspect of his life, and he made his humor, his grace, his charm and his wisdom manifest in the writing that was a major aspect of life to him.
Born on November 18, 1874, the son of Clarence S. Day, of the New York Stock Exchange, and grandson of Benjamin Henry Day, founder of the New York Sun, he grew up in the city of his birth, was educated at St. Paul's School and Yale. He entered the brokerage business, disliked it, resigned and enlisted in the United States Navy. It was there that he became ill and was forced to retire to a physically inactive but intellectually energetic existence. When he died he was at the very height of his power and his success. |
Clarence Day: proof that there was once upon a time in America humor without unkindness or vulgarity. |
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editor
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| Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 11:20 am Post subject: |
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Road-side Dog
Hardcover
By Czeslaw Milosz
Translated by the author and Robert Haas
| Quote: | The gods of ancient Greece were capricious. Human fates depended upon their will, yet humans had a hard time trying to guess what would win the gods' favor, what would provoke their anger.
...Considering that the Creator of the universe had already lost much of His authority in the eighteenth century, when He was magnanimously granted the title of the Great Clockmaker who, once having put machinery in motion, did not meddle with its functioning; considering that the terrible suffering of people in the ensuing centuries, provoked by wars and genocide, made interventions by Providence seem even less probable; considering, finally, that the human mind learned to link the notion of scienfitic truth with empirical proof -- cosmologists attempting to find out how the universe came into being carefully avoided any ideas that would suggest their affiliation with religion. Some scientists, though, wondering at the precision of the laws governing matter after the Big Bang, were not loath to postulate the existence of powerful intelligences which act in a manner incomprehensible to us, possibly for their own amusement. One of these men of science, *Sebastian Kuo, even expressed the opinion that our universe might be their experiment based upon quantum mechanics, or even a simulation. His book, however - which, he himself concedes, is on the border of science fiction - has for its primary subject our life on earth and examines the highly enigmatic role in it of chance and coincidence. We are inclined - goes the argument - to intuit a logic behind events which we can almost grasp, yet it eludes us and we are sentenced to ignorance again. Should we not imagine two teams, endowed with intelligence inaccessible to us, engaged in a sort of game of chess, using us as if we were symbols in a computer? This would explain glimpses of logic in our personal histories, so that we are inclined sometimes to believe in Fatum, when a sudden departure from regularity occurs, when obviously another hand has entrered the game. What the Greeks told themselves about the gods' councils, loves, and mutual entities, on which the adventures of mortals depended, was clever, for it proved - reasons the scientist - that they had an intuitive grasp of the distance separating our will from a higher sort of calculation, indifferent to our desires and laments. (From Olympians' Games at pgs. 167-169) |
More gambles on God.
More on the intellectual meanderings of Polish gambles and gamblers.
More gambling sci-fi.
| Quote: | | Note: We can find no presence on the Internet of either the scientist, Sebastian Kuo, or the text to which the poem refers. Visitors with information are warmly invited to pass it along to legal@pokerpulse.com. |
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editor
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 10:35 am Post subject: |
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Harper's
Magazine Subscription
The Sea
June, 2007
| Quote: | 1
Seafarers I assign
To the ranks of those most
Beaten - neither a
Godly fate nor mortal
Man ever will assign
To them what they deserve
Of wealth. Always gambling
Their far flung trade at long
Odds, they journey many
Times ruined for profit.
They may preserve or they
May lose. I marvel at
Them, I praise those who go
Out again always to
Earn a cold small living
With their hard-beaten hands.
_______
(Excerpt from the poem constructed from fragments of lost works by Sophocles, from the March issue of Poetry. The fragments, from papyrus manuscipts or quoted in the writings of later authors, were selected, assembled and translated by Reginald Gibbons, who teaches at Northwestern University, at p. 18-19.) |
Poetry
Magazine Subscription
March, 2007
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editor
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| Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2007 1:30 pm Post subject: |
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The Cure at Troy
A version of Sophocles's Philoctetes
Paperback
By Seamus Heaney
| Quote: | Neoptolemus: What are the orders?
Odysseus: You are going to have to work out some way
Of deceiving Philoctetes with a story.
He'll ask who you are and where you're from
And you'll say, Achilles' son, which will be true.
And that you're on your voyage back from Troy,
Heading home in a rage against the Greeks.
...Without you, Troy cannot be taken.
We need you.
To commandeer the bow from Philoctetes.
And always remember this:
you are the only one
That can approach him. You weren't sworn in
On the first expedition, you didn't sail
Under oath to anybody. Your slate is clean.
But if I was challenged, I could not deny
Any of that. And if he recognized me
And had his bow with him, I would be dead.
And you'd be dead for associating with me.
So the trick you're going to have to turn is this:
Sweet talk him and relieve him
Of a bow and arrows that are actually miraculous.
But, of course, son, I know what you are like.
I know this goes against the grain
And you hate it. You're a very honest lad,
But all the same: even you must enjoy
Coming out on top.
Do it my way, this once.
All right, you'll be ashamed
but that won't last.
And once you're over it, you'll have the rest of your life
To be good and true and incorruptible.
Neoptolemus: I hate hearing you say this
and hate more
The thought of having to do it.
It goes against
All I was ever brought up to believe.
It's really low behavior.
Why could we not
Go at him, man to man? If he's so badly lamed
He'd never be a match for two of us.
We're Greeks, so, all right, we do our duty.
I don't think I could bear being called a traitor.
But in all honesty I have to say
I'd rather fail and keep my self-respect
Than win by cheating.
(-- pgs. 6-9) |
More about the Field Day Theatre Company production of the play in 1990. |
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editor
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Posts: 2940
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| Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2007 2:13 pm Post subject: |
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The Midnight Verdict
Paperback
By Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney
| Quote: | Orpheus called for Hymen and Hymen came
Robed in saffron like a saffron flame
Leaping across tremendous airy zones
To reach the land of the Ciconians.
So Hymen did attend the rites, but no
Good luck or cheer or salutations, no
Auspicious outcome was to come of that.
Instead, the torch he carried smoked and spat
And no matter how he fanned it wouldn't flare.
His eyes kept watering. And a worse disaster
Than could have been predicted came to pass
For as the bride went roaming through the grass
With all her naiads round her, she fell down.
A snake had bit her ankle. She was gone.
Orpheus mourned her in the world above,
Raving and astray, until his love
Compelled him down among the very shades.
He dared to venture on the Stygian roads
Among those shadow people, the many, many
Ghosts of the dead, to find Persephone
And the lord who rules the dismal land of Hades;
Then plucked the lyre-gut for its melodies
And sang in harmony: 'O founded powers
Who rule the underearth, this life of ours,
This mortal life we live in upper air
Will be returned to you. To you, therefore,
We may speak the whole truth and speak it out
As I do now, directly: I have not
Transgressed your gloomy borders just to see
The sights of Tartarus, nor to tie all three
of the three-necked monster's snake-snarled necks in one.
I crossed into your jurisdiction
Because my wife is here. The snake she stepped on
Poisoned her and cut her off too soon
And though I have tried to suffer on my own
And outlive loss, in the end Love won.
Whether or not you underpowers feel
The force of this god, Love, I cannot tell,
But surely he prevails down here as well
Unless that ancient story about hell
And its lord and a ravaged girl's not true.
Was it not Love that bound the two of you?
(Opening stanzas from Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book X at pgs. 15-16) |
| Quote: | | More on the 'ancient story' from Week 2, Lecture 2, generously spoon-fed by the University of Sheffield's liberal-minded Engligh Dept. |
Master paintings depicting Orpheus and Eurydice.
Orphée et Eurydice
Complete opera by Christoph Gluck
Our favorite is a 1956 recording featuring Frostbacks Léopold Simoneau (Tenor); Pierrette Alarie (Soprano);
Suzanne Danco (Soprano); the Roger Blanchard Vocal Ensemble Choir and the wonderful
L'Orchestre Lamoureux.
CD Audio
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=2918#2918
Last edited by editor on Mon Oct 22, 2007 7:54 am; edited 1 time in total |
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editor
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Posts: 2940
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| Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2007 7:40 am Post subject: |
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Contemporary Irish Poetry
An Anthology
Hardcover
Edited by Anthony Bradley
| Quote: | Hector
Talking to her, he knew it was the end,
The last time he'd speed her into sleep with kisses;
Achilles had it in for him and was fighting mad.
The roads of his longing she again wandered,
A girl disirable as midsummer's day.
He was marked as a man and he knew it,
Being no match for Achilles whom the gods were backing.
Sadly he spoke to her for hours, his heart
Snapping like sticks, she on his shoulder crying.
Yet, sorry only that the meaning eluded him.
He slept well all night, having caressed
Andromache like a flower, though in a dream he say
A body lying on the sands, huddled and bleeding,
Near the feet a sword in bits and by the head
An upturned, dented helmet.
Icarus
As, even to-day, the airman, feeling the plane sweat
Suddenly, seeing the horizon tilt up gravely, the wings shiver,
Knows that, for once, Daedalus has slipped up badly,
Drunk on the job, perhaps more likely dreaming, high-flier Icarus,
Head butting down, skidding along the light-shafts
Back, over the tones of the sea-waves and the slip-stream,
heard
The gravel-voiced, stuttering trumpets of his heart
Sennet among the crumbling court-yards of his brain the
mistake
Of trusting somebody else on an important affair like this;
And, while the flat sea, approaching, buckled into oh!
avenues
Of acclamation, he saw the wrong story fan out inot history.
Truth, undefined, lost in his own neglect. On the hills,
The summer-shackled hills, the sun spanged all day;
Love and the world were young and there was no ending:
But star-chaser, big-time-going, chancer Icarus
Like a dog on the sea lay and the girls forgot him,
And Daedalus, too busy hammering another job,
Remembered him only in pubs. No bugler at all
Sobbed taps for the young fool then, reported missing.
Presumed drowned, wing-bones and feathers on the tide
Drifting in casually, one by one.
( Valentin Iremonger, pgs. 145-146) |
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=3068#3068 |
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