um de muitos hinos

não é esta a noite do mundo. se for, não sei
pra que serve este coro, face ao silêncio
dos titans e à iniquidade demente
aprisionada no teu peito - porque é hei-de

preparar as danças, aprender as falas,
praticar a fé, e ensair justiça
até que na estreia do mundo não esteja omissa
nenhuma das virtudes? «entregá-las

à humanidade.» ingenuidade, bela
e travessa, a trapaceira liberdade
de que só um deus como Sade
se poderia lembrar. a tua promessa é grande. ainda que sê-la

seja uma responsabilidade demasiado
pesada. preferimos tarefas mais simples:
a arte, a poesia, o desenfrear dos sentidos, a inteligência.
lançando-me contra o mar encrespado

gritei o bem que não sou. mas o bem
aprende-se, e se carece
de professores, bem, ao menos mede-se
segundo os teus beijos, e tem

na tua glória a escala.
virá o dia em que no céu estrelado
não brilharão mais deuses e que no estrado
teatral do coração a lei que o teu sopro exala

não se fará ouvir. virá o dia
em que a justiça não poderá jorrar
e nem sequer gotejar, e não trará enfado
aos propósitos dos iníquos. seja. até então, desafia

a nossa vontade para os teus mandamentos.
invade o nosso desejo. apodera-te dos nossos gestos.
mesmo se nem sempre cumprirmos, faz de nós a festa
rouca que dite e vote ao teu silêncio.

Persas — Quando viste...

Quando viste no mundo alguém a sacrificar ao demónio, tu por tua vez começaste a adorar Deus; e quando viste alguém a atacar e a assaltar e a perturbar homens bons e a tomar o que era deles com más acções, tu por tua vez evitaste tratar as criaturas com violência e rapina; cuidaste dos justos e deste-lhes as boas-vindas e recebeste-os na tua casa com presentes. A tua riqueza, viesse de perto ou de longe, foi adquirida honradamente. E quando viste pessoas a prestar falsos juramentos e a deixar-se corromper com dinheiro e a cometer perjúrio, tu por tua vez decidiste-te a dizer a verdade e a falar com justiça. Eu sou os teus pensamentos justos, as tuas palavras justas, as tuas justas acções, pensados, faladas, realizadas por ti.

(Poema persa séc VI a.C.)

O que faz falta...

What is most needed is a thorough and accurate knowledge of the poems, conjoined with the sort of common sense that would be used in the study of a modern author. This can be better attained by reading Homer and consulting the literature of criticism than by reading the literature of criticism and consulting Homer.

George M. Calhoun, Polity and Society p.438

(citado na epígrafe a Anne Parry, Blamess Ægisthus)

obrigado Sophia!

PRECE QUA FATIGENT?

Quem vocet divum populus ruentis
imperi rebus? Prece qua fatigent
virgines sanctæ minus audientem
     carmina Vestam?

ει δέ τις ὑπέροπτα χερ-
σὶν ὴ λόγῳ πορεύεται,
Δίκας αφόβητος ουδὲ
δαιμόνων ἕδη σέβων,
κακά νιν ἕλοιτο μοῖρα,
δυσπότμου χάριν χλιδᾶς,
ει μὴ τὸ κέρδος κερδανεῖ δικαίως
καὶ τῶν ασέπτων έρξεται,
ὴ τῶν αθίκτων ἕξεται ματᾴζων.
τίς έτι ποτ' εν τοῖσδ' ανὴρ θυμοῦ βέλη
εύξεται ψυχᾶς αμύνειν;
ει γὰρ αἱ τοιαίδε πράξεις τίμιαι,
τί δεῖ με χορεύειν;

Serus in cælum redeas diuque
lætus intersis populo Quirini,
neve te nostris vitiis iniquum
     ocior aura

tollat; hic magnos potius triumphos,
hic ames dici pater atque princeps,
neu sinas Medos equitare inultos
     te duce, Cæsar!

Conhecimento & Pesquisa

I know that sermons against specialization are two a penny and that they are unlikely to make an impression on those who know how hard it is even to master a small field of research. But I should like to urge here the essential difference, in this respect, between the role of research in the sciences and in the humanities. The scientist, if I understand the situation, must always work on the frontiers of knowledge. He must therefore select a small sector in which hypotheses can be tested and revised by means of experiments which may be costly and time-consuming. He, too, no doubt, should be able to survey a larger field, and be well-read in the neighbouring disciplines, but what he is ultimately valued for is his discoveries rather than his knowledge.

It is different, I content, with the humanist. Humanistic education aims first and foremost at knowledge, that knowledge that used to be called 'culture'. In the past this culture was largely transmitted and absorbed in the home or on travels. The universities did not concern themselves with such subjects as history or literature, art or music. Their aim was mainly vocational, and even a training in the Classics, though valued by society, had its vocational reasons. Nobody thought that it was the purpose of a university education to tell students about Shakespeare or Dickens, Michelangelo or Bach. These were things the 'cultured' person knew. They were neither fit objects for examinations nor for research.

I happen to have some sympathy for this old-fashioned approach, for I think that the humanist really differs from the scientist in his relative valuation of knowledge and research. It is more relevant to know Shakespeare, or Michelangelo than to 'do research' about them. Research may yield nothing fresh, but knowledge yields pleasure and enrichment. It seems a thousand pities that our universities are so organized that this difference is not acknowledged.

Much of the malaise of the humanities might disappear overnight if it became clear that they need not ape the sciences in order to become respectable. There may be a science of culture, but this belongs to anthropology and sociology. The cultural historian wants to be a scholar, not a scientist. He wants to give his students and his readers access to the creations of other minds; research, here, is incidental. Not that it is never necessary. We may suspect current interpretations of Shakespeare or the way Bach is performed and want to get at the truth of the matter. But in all this research the cultural historian really aims at serving culture rather than at feeding the academic industry.

This industry, I fear, threatens to become an enemy of culture and of cultural history. Few people can read and write at the same time; and while we pursue our major and minor problems of research, the unread masterpieces of the past look at us reproachfully from the shelves.

E. H. Gombrich. In Search of Cultural History. Clarendon Press (1969).

e calavas-te («nam tu semper aderas misericorditer sæviens»)

ibam longius a te et sinebas, et jactabar et effundebar et diffluebam et ebulliebam per fornicationes meas, et tacebas. o tardum gaudium meum! tacebas tunc, et ego ibam porro longe a te in plura et plura sterilia semina dolorum superba dejectione et inquieta lassitudine.

Aurelii Augustini Confessionum 2.2.2

Gaudete, Gaudete, Christus est natus!

the adjective: no spell or incantation in Faërie is more potent

Philology has been dethroned from the high place it once had in this court of inquiry. Max Müller's view of mythology as a 'disease of language' can be abandoned without regret. Mythology is not a disease at all, though it may like all human things become diseased. You might as well say that thinking is a disease of the mind. It would be more near the truth to say that languages, especially modern European languages, are a disease of mythology. But Language cannot, all the same, be dismissed. The incarnate mind, the tongue, and the tale are in our world coeval. The human mind, endowed with the powers of generalisation and abstraction, sees not only green-grass, discriminating it from other things (and finding it fair to look upon), but sees that it is green as well as being grass. But how powerful, how stimulating to the very faculty that produced it, was the invention of the adjective: no spell or incantation in Faërie is more potent. And that is not surprising: such incantations might indeed be said to be only another view of adjectives, a part of speech in a mythical grammar. The mind that thought of light, heavy, grey, yellow, still, swift, also conceived of magic that would make heavy things light and able to fly, turn grey lead into yellow gold, and the still rock into swift water. If it could do the one, it could do the other; it inevitably did both. When we can take green from grass, blue from heaven, and red from blood, we have already an enchanter's power — upon one plane; and the desire to wield that power in the world external to our minds awakes. It does not follow that we shall use that power well upon any plane. We may put a deadly green upon a man's face and produce a horror; we may make the rare and terrible blue moon to shine; or we may cause woods to spring with silver leaves and rams to wear fleeces of gold, and put hot fire into the belly of the cold worm. But in such 'fantasy', as it is called, new form is made; Faërie begins; Man becomes a sub-creator.

J. R. R. Tolkien. On Fairy-Stories in The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays. Harper Collins (2006)

Amanheceu em mim

Κ

mete-me medo pensar que um dia
ninguém se lembrará que houve deuses.
não digo acreditar
já ninguém acredita em Hermes,
o Corredor,
mas lembrar ao menos que houve um dia
formas brilhantes nas trevas
cavalos no céu do verão
e que os homens e as mulheres desafiavam
a Lua e o Sol e por vezes ganhavam.
não é pena que sinto, é aquela
tristeza que dizem que os deuses sentiam,
quando existiam,
a tristeza com sabor a maresia
que nascia de não saberem o que fazer com tanta
felicidade. os deuses
viam as gerações dos homens passar
como as folhas das árvores
e foram-se esquecendo de como é bom amar-nos.
nós vemos as gerações dos deuses passar
como as folhas dos livros
e vamos desaprendendo também os gestos das libações,
da prece, e da luz. um dia alguém chegará a uma coluna dum templo
e sentar-se-á nela, e comerá a merenda,
e isso será bonito
mas será também triste.

All ripens and rots

After þe sesoun of somer wyth þe soft wyndeȝ
Quen Ȝeferus syfleȝ hymself on sedeȝ and erbeȝ,
Wela wynne is þe wort þat waxes þeroute,
When þe donkande dewe dropeȝ of þe leueȝ,
To bide a blysful blusch of þe bryȝt sunne.
Bot þen hyȝes heruest, and hardenes hym sone,
Warneȝ hym for þe wynter to wax ful rype;
He dryues wyth droȝt þe dust for to ryse,
Fro þe face of þe folde to flyȝe ful hyȝe;
Wroþe wynde of þe welkyn wrasteleȝ with þe sunne,
Þe leueȝ lancen fro þe lynde and lyȝten on þe grounde,
And al grayes þe gres þat grene watȝ ere;
Þenne al rypeȝ and roteȝ þat ros vpon fyrst,
And þus ȝirneȝ þe ȝere in ȝisterdayez mony,
And wynter wyndez aȝayn, as þe worlde askeȝ,
no fage,
Til Meȝelmas mone
Watȝ cumen wyth wynter wage;
Þen þenkkeȝ Gawan ful sone
Of his anious uyage.

The ‘Pearl’ Poet. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. II 516-535