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Moral Letters to Lucilius // a poem

A translation of a poem of mine.


My dear Lucilius.
Once again I encourage you to ponder
The virtues of temperance
And tranquillity.
My dear Lucilius.
Long have I written to you incessantly,
And told you tales of brave souls
That you might copy them.
We are both making great progress.
My dear Lucilius.
Our friends tell me
That in your party nights you pass by my house
And sing just a bit lower
So as not to wake me up.
I have indeed a light sleep,
Though not from cares,
But from the light electric the gods
Planted inside me,
In my spirit,
And that keeps me up at night
While I write to you.
My dear Lucilius.
Tell me news. Some say
That every night you sing
Until your lips stiffen and numb.
I have trouble believing this.
You do not sing, you pray.
Always have you kept the two apart.
And be that as it may I do not think you could sing
Without me there to give you the tone.
This is true,
Is it not?
My dear Lucilius.
Once again I ask that you direct your body
To just deeds, that you conform your soul
To the super-celestial gods.
If I repeat myself, if I search for you,
If I insist and see myself in you,
That is because I know that God that spins everything
Spins us both in unison,
If I take your hand He
Takes mine in turn,
And with the other He takes yours.
My dear Lucilius.
Try to dull your love.
Dull it and smoothen it,
The love for people,
The love for the beautiful statues in your palaces,
Dull the love for philosophy,
The love for music,
The love for the gods of Love and the others.
Love instead the dulling itself.
But even that in a way that's tame and faint.
Let it dry and gather it once more the following Summer.
Thin it until it fits,
Like a papyrus sheet,
Between the closed beak of an ibis.
My dear Lucilius.
Once again I encourage you to ponder
The virtues of temperance and resignation.

Imagem: Jusepe de Ribera. Seneca (?), 1625-1650 @ Londres.

A Kiss With a Fist

Some people exercise patience. I exercise my wrath. As the docile person that I am (by long training, let it be said, not quite by temperament), living in Israel has provided me ample opportunity to insert in my diet a daily supplement of ire. Two things have factored into this equation, the first thereof being my by now famous through lamentation incessant lost of luggage. Vueling, the brave Aragonians, decided to place the luggage of everyone who was in the plane in another plane. When trying to describe such an enlightened feat, words fail me mystically —for surely we must acknowledge the sheer genius that must go into the avant-garde and non-chalant disregard for little England convention that consists in refusing to let the bags of an entire crowd fly to the same destination of the owners thereof. An insightful choice, an artist's hand can here be spotted.

Still, years of adhering austerely to the precepts of Roman Stoicism have made ill-fitted to react. I let it pass the first days, faithful in my disbelief of human nature, and even when three or four sunrises had tanned my back it still took me a significant effort to muster the appropriate tone of voice with which to jolt the guiltless call-center operator on the other side of the line, only to regret it and inescapably apologize and confess that I was indeed aware that the fault lie in something bigger, something bigger than either of us.

The weeks thence passed, and I have seen Seneca's words fly away from ears and heart. Israel has taught me rage. I am grateful, being as I am a believer that we should drink life to the lees, and moreover that a sin it is, if we should die still unknown to anything that is human. Beam me up, Achilles.

But something else, more insiduous yet meeker and tamer, gentler and fuckeduper, has branded my days with its flower. Let queuing be the subject of the following chapter. I will be forgiven for the affectation of British poshness involved in the use of this vocab. The British do, after all, use a different word. But being as I am in soul and substance closer to that North American exceptionalism than I am to the British, it would not beseem me their word to employ, for what happens here in Israel will scantly suffer to be called queue anyway.

Whatever. Consider the following proposition. You, hypocrite lecteur, stand. Yet not in vain you stay. Futile is not your wait. You hold your ground, because there resides in your id's desire a command that you buy coffee. Or toothpaste — nay!, even a pen (* "The following film is based on true events"). But how could you be mistaken thus, ever to believe that such a milquetoast thing as your unassuming heart could ever stand in the way of the minotaur élan and valiant heart of the Israeli? Who will clash against you, not human against mere human, but ensouled body against ensouled body, a live prefiguration of Holy Ragnarök, when shields and ailes galore shall be cloven, ere sink the shops and supermarkets of this mortal earth?

"Cloven" stands here to wit in the typological schema of course in place of the old lady's who has just arrived foot placed with a courage as grandiose as strategic in front of yours, that she may burst her loaf of bread before you dare set down your milk. The old lady, with Iliadic force, will be, whatever it takes, the best. She will be superior to all.

A heroic age for a heroic people, whose values perish not with them. The crone is the sacred relay of her own valour, a dragon's step in the tradition that's passed over to the young man, who proudly treads the footsteps of his elder. And who in turn shall lovingly teach the daughter how sweet it is, to forge your own fate, to cut the line, in the souq as in life.

As a great Greek poet once wrote,

«And we who have nothing shall teach them rage.»

("ἐμεῖς ποὺ τίποτε δὲν εἴχαμε θὰ τοὺς διδάξουμε τὴ γαλήνη.")

Jerusalem // a poem

This is not the place where hope
caves in to time. It races. It flees
from piety, from Justice
and caprice. Where each mitzvah
has leases on that great commandment.
Whose word you breathe in.
And choke out
so it roughens your throat
til it's sour from sorrow. How you miss
when it was bloody from glee! God has crushed
Love into souls. And God will grant, provide.
You will not hang
from either horn of the Crescent.
As for the land,
let it swing wide round your neck,
hushed like
eloquence. The Lord
has promised. There is only one
who may regret that now.

das dämmerige Tal der Menschen

Damals trugst du deine Asche zu Berge:
willst du heute dein Feuer in die Täler tragen?

- N

ad juga cur faciles populi?

Lucani Pharsalia Libri II 284-325

                                      sic fatur; at illi
arcano sacras reddit Cato pectore voces.
'summum, Brute, nefas civilia bella fatemur,
sed quo fata trahunt virtus secura sequetur.
crimen erit superis et me fecisse nocentem.
sidera quis mundumque velit spectare cadentem
expers ipse metus? quis, cum ruat arduus aether,
terra labet mixto coeuntis pondere mundi,
complossas tenuisse manus? gentesne furorem
Hesperium ignotæ Romanaque bella sequentur
diductique fretis alio sub sidere reges,
otia solus agam? procul hunc arcete furorem,
o superi, motura Dahas ut clade Getasque
securo me Roma cadat. ceu morte parentem
natorum orbatum longum producere funus
ad tumulos jubet ipse dolor, juvat ignibus atris
inseruisse manus constructoque aggere busti
ipsum atras tenuisse faces, non ante revellar
exanimem quam te conplectar, Roma; tuumque
nomen, Libertas, et inanem persequar umbram.
sic eat: inmites Romana piacula divi
plena ferant, nullo fraudemus sanguine bellum.
o utinam cælique deis Erebique liceret
hoc caput in cunctas damnatum exponere pœnas!
devotum hostiles Decium pressere cateruæ:
me geminæ figant acies, me barbara telis
Rheni turba petat, cunctis ego pervius hastis
excipiam medius totius volnera belli.
hic redimat sanguis populos, hac cæde luatur
quidquid Romani meruerunt pendere mores.
ad juga cur faciles populi, cur sæua volentes
regna pati pereunt? me solum invadite ferro,
me frustra leges et inania jura tuentem.
hic dabit hic pacem jugulus finemque malorum
gentibus Hesperiis: post me regnare volenti
non opus est bello. quin publica signa ducemque
Pompeium sequimur? nec, si fortuna favebit,
hunc quoque totius sibi jus promittere mundi
non bene conpertum est: ideo me milite vincat
ne sibi se vicisse putet.' sic fatur, et acris
irarum movit stimulos juvenisque calorem
excitat in nimios belli civilis amores. 

La casa de Asterión [Latine]

DOMUS ASTERIONIS
(Georgio Ludovico Borges auctore)

ἡ δὲ [βασίλιεια] Ἀστέριον ἐγέννησε.

at [regina] Asterionem genuit

 APOLODORI Bibliotheca, III, 11

Scio me accusari superbiæ, fortasse misanthropiæ, vel etiam quis scit dementiæ. Omnes accusationes tales, quas opportune castigabo, cassæ omnino sunt. Verum est, me domo non exire, nec tamen minus verum januas domus, quarum numerus infinitus est, patere semper, et noctu et interdiu, et non modo hominibus, sed etiam animalibus. Cuique venia datur ingrediendi. Pompæ muliebres non hic invenientur, nec magnificentia palatiorum, sed quies dumtaxat solitudoque. Nihilo setius invenietur domus talis, qualis nulla alia exstat in toto orbe terrarum. (Dicunt quidam in Ægypto quandam similem sitam esse, mentiti.) Vel ii qui me accusant fatentur ‘tantum unum armarium in tota domo inveniri.’ Ecce aliud ridiculum, quod proferunt, ‘me, Asterionem, esse captivum.’ Num rursus dicam ‘nullam januam clausam esse’, num addam ‘neminem clave includi’? Ceterum, vesperi interdum exiens ambulo per vias; si ante noctem reversus sum, id fuit ob timorem vultuum hominum in turba faciem gerentium sine colore nec notis peculiaribus, faciem sicut manum apertam. Quamquam sol jam occiderat, debilis planctus puerilis et rudes preces plebis plane fecerunt ‘me ab eis agnitum esse’. Orabatur, fugiebatur, prosternebatur. Erant qui scanderent stilobatum Templi Securum, erant qui lapides colligerent. Etiam fuit homo, qui sese occultavit prope litus maritimum. Non frustra habui matrem reginam; non potui confundi cum vulgo, etsi propter modestiam id prorsus fuerat quod volebam.

Negare non possum me esse unicum. Non credo doctrinam posse tradi ceteris hominibus. Sicut philosophus ille, arbitror ‘nihil posse communicari scripturâ.’ Laudes turpes, et minutiæ triviales sedem non obtinent in animo meo, qui modo grandibus aptatur; nunquam valui servare discrimen inter aliquam litteram et aliam. Propter quandam impatientam magnificam, nunquam legere didici. Interdum id me pænitet, sunt enim et noctes diesque longinquæ.

Certe, otia non mihi desunt. Per porticus lapideas curro usque ad solis occasum arieti similis arietanti, idque donec vertiginem patior. Sub umbra cisternæ genua flecto et mihi ludum propono, in quo aliquis me quærit. Sunt etiam tecta, de quibus me projicio donec sanguis effluit. Quandocumque volo, licet mihi ludere “Dormiendo,” claudens oculos et fortiter animum ducens. (Interdum vere dormio, interdum, quum occulos aperio, jam dies in noctem mutatus est.) Ex tot tamen ludis, mihi dilectissimus apparet “Alterius Asterionis”. Fingo mente me ab eo visitari, et ei domum meam a me monstrari. Magna cum religione, Nunc, inquam, revertimur ad præteritum trivium, sive etiam, Nunc ducimur ad aliam plateam, aut, Sciebam fore ut tibi dispositio domus placeret, aut, Nunc cisternam videbis arena plenam, sive quoque, Videbis quemadmodum hypogæum dividatur. Nonnumquam ipse fallor, et uterque nostri ridet abunde.

Non tantum hos ludos excogitavi, sed etiam domum ipsam consideravi. Omnes partes ejus plus semel inveniuntur, omnis locus est alius locus. Non est una cisterna, una platea, unus alveolus, unum præsepium; sunt quattuordecim (sunt infinita) præsepia, alveoli, plateæ, cisternæ, domus ipsa est tanta quantus totus orbis terrarum; dico melius: ipsa domus est totus orbis terrarum. Tamen, postquam tot plateas, cisternas, et pulvere oppertas cinereo colore porticus funditus exploravi, viam tandem consecutus sum, et conspectum habui Templi Securum, marisque. Hæc non intellexeram, donec visio nocturna mihi ostendit quattordecim etiam esse (infinita sunt) maria et templa. Omnia apparent multipliciter, quattordecim vicibus, tamen duo exstant in mundo, quæ videntur semel modo exstare: supra, inexplicabilis sol; infra, Asterion. Fortasse ipse fui, qui astra et solem et hanc ingentem domum creavi, sed non jam recordor.

Nonno quoque anno, novem homines intrant domum meam, quia volunt me eos ab omni malo liberare. Voces eorum exaudio gradusque per porticus lapideas et lætus eos quæsitum curro. Ritus ipse paulisper tantum durat. Cadunt ordinatim, neque opus est mihi cruore sordescere manus. Manent ibi, ubi ceciderunt, et cadavera fiunt signa, quibus alias porticus ab aliis distinguo. Qui illi sint ignoro, modo scio unum ex eis vaticinatum esse ‘olim redemptorem meum venturum.’ Ab eo tempore, solitudo non jam me lædit, scio enim quod redemptor meus vivat et in novissimo de terra surrecturus sit. Si auditus meus perveniret ad sonos orbis terrarum, ego gradus ejus perciperem. Utinam ducat me ad locum paucarum porticuum et paucarum januarum. Qualis erit redemptor meus?, interrogo me ipsum. Num taurus erit an homo? Forsitan taurus vultu hominis? Aut erit sicut ego?

Æneus fulsit matutino gladius sole. Jam nullum vestigium sanguinis erat videre.

—Potestne credere, Ariadna?, inquit Theseus, Minotaurus vix se defendit.

Gratias ago Ludovico, qui in textu erudiendo mihi opem tulit.

in magnis et voluisse sat est

Herman Melville. Moby Dick, or the Whale. Capítulo 104 - The Fossil Whale.

One often hears of writers that rise and swell with their subject, though it may seem but an ordinary one. How, then, with me, writing of the Leviathan? Unconsciously my chirography expands into placard capitals. Give me a condor's quill! Give me Vesuvius' crater for an inkstand! Friends, hold my arms! For in the mere act of penning my thoughts of this Leviathan, they weary me, and make me faint with their outreaching comprehensiveness of sweep, as if to include the whole circle of the sciences, and all the generations of whales, and men, and mastodons, past, present, and to come, with all the revolving panoramas of empire on earth, and throughout the whole universe, not excluding its suburbs. Such, and so magnifying, is the virtue of a large and liberal theme! We expand to its bulk. To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it.

Werner Jaeger

William M. Calder III. Preface in Werner Jaeger Reconsidered. Illinois Classical Studies (1992)

Werner Jaeger (1888-1961) held the chairs of Friedrich Nietzsche, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, and Paul Shorey. A University Professorship, above all departments and requiring small teaching and no administrative obligations, was created for him at Harvard University. He enjoyed the finest education available in the history of classical studies. He founded two journals and what Eduard Spraigner first called "The Third Humanism." He published widely in the fields of Greek education and philosophy and the Greek church fathers. He stressed Christianity as the continuation of Hellenism rather than its destroyer. His students included men of the rank of Richard Harder, Viktor Pöschl, and Wolfgang Schadewaldt. Today what was acclaimed as his most famous work is read only by dilettantes too naive to perceive its defects. The Third Humanism has become a passing fashion, an aberration of the dying Weimar Republic, of as little abiding influence as its rival the George Circle. His name is rarely cited in the footnotes of the learned. Modern students of his own subject no longer recognize his name.

[...] C. H. Kahn remarked at the end of the conference, "I came admiring him; I departed pitying him." This was the feeling of most of us. Similar reactions were evoked at the Eduard Norden conference held in Bad Homburg in June 1991. The gulf between the ideals professed by Jaeger as the prophet of the Third Humanism and the petty compromises and betrayals that his Sitz im Lebel elicited from him caused difficulties for some. Ten years ago when I published with her permission Wilamowitz' Latin Autobiography, the nonagenarian Schwester Hildegard von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff with great wisdom said to me, "Wilamowitz was my father; for you he is a Forschungsobjekt. I understand that." Many do not, alas, understand the difference between funeral panegyric or a disciple's pietas and scholarship. Those who do not should deal with the long dead, Homer, Plato, or Aristotle. Jaeger, like his teacher Wilamowitz, is great enough to survive his indiscretions, and, indeed, becomes more interesting because of them.

τὴν δὲ τῶν βιβλίων δίψαν ῥῖψον

Numa livraria online apareceu-me este livro, que já há muito considero das melhores capas que um livro já teve a graça de ter. Lembrei-me de ir procurar a passagem, embora um erro de memória (lembrava-me de σαρκίδιον, também frequentemente atestado no Marco Aurélio, em vez de σαρκία, o termo do texto) me ter desviado do percurso. Seja como for. É dos poucos livros do mundo que só se pára porque se tem de parar.

Marco Aurélio, Meditações. II. 2-3

Ὅ τί ποτε τοῦτό εἰμι, σαρκία ἐστὶ καὶ πνευμάτιον καὶ τὸ ἡγεμονικόν. ἄφες τὰ βιβλία· μηκέτι σπῶ· οὐ δέδονται. ἀλλ᾽ ὡς ἤδη ἀποθνήισκων τῶν μὲν σαρκίων καταφρόνησον· λύθρος καὶ ὀστάρια καὶ κροκύφαντος, ἐκ νεύρων, φλεβίων, ἀρτηριῶν πλεγμάτιον. θέασαι δὲ καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα ὁποῖόν τί ἐστιν· ἄνεμος, οὐδὲ ἀεὶ τὸ αὐτό, ἀλλὰ πάσης ὥρας ἐξεμούμενον καὶ πάλιν ῥοφούμενον. τρίτον οὖν ἐστι τὸ ἡγεμονικόν. ὧδε ἐπινοήθητι· γέρων εἶ· μηκέτι τοῦτο ἐάσηις δουλεῦσαι, μηκέτι καθ᾽ ὁρμὴν ἀκοινώνητον νευροσπαστηθῆναι, μηκέτι τὸ εἱμαρμένον ἢ παρὸν δυσχερᾶναι ἢ μέλλον ὑπιδέσθαι. 

Τὰ τῶν θεῶν προνοίας μεστά, τὰ τῆς τύχης οὐκ ἄνευ φύσεως ἢ συγκλώσεως καὶ ἐπιπλοκῆς τῶν προνοίαι διοικουμένων. πάντα ἐκεῖθεν ῥεῖ· πρόσεστι δὲ τὸ ἀναγκαῖον καὶ τὸ τῶι ὅλωι κόσμωι συμφέρον, οὗ μέρος εἶ. παντὶ δὲ φύσεως μέρει ἀγαθόν, ὃ φέρει ἡ τοῦ ὅλου φύσις καὶ ὃ ἐκείνης ἐστὶ σωστικόν. σώιζουσι δὲ κόσμον, ὥσπερ αἱ τῶν στοιχείων, οὕτως καὶ αἱ τῶν συγκριμάτων μεταβολαί.ταῦτά σοι ἀρκείτω· ἀεὶ δόγματα ἔστω. τὴν δὲ τῶν βιβλίων δίψαν ῥῖψον, ἵνα μὴ γογγύζων ἀποθάνηις, ἀλλὰ ἵλεως ἀληθῶς καὶ ἀπὸ καρδίας εὐχάριστος τοῖς θεοῖς.