“Metamorphoses” (The Golden Age) – Ovid
Richibi’s Weblog
Just another WordPress.com weblog
Category: a poem to ponder
April 8, 2020
“Metamorphoses” – Ovid, 105
“The Creation” (1935)
Aaron Douglas
________
it should be noted that this exemplary
translation of Metamorphoses was
done by a clutch of eminent poets,
John Dryden principally, England’s
first Poet Laureate, 1688, but with
the help of, notably, Joseph Addison,
Alexander Pope, and William
Congreve, among a number of
celebrated others, under the
direction of the poet and physician,
Samuel Garth, in no later than 1717,
over 300 hundred years ago
this will explain the sometimes
disorienting spelling of some
otherwise common words, you’ve
read already, for instance, “extreams”
for “extremes”, “watry” for “watery”,
“blustring” for “blustering”
it might also be that my own reading
of the text could be influenced by
idiosyncratic interpretations given
by the above poets, who would’ve
written according to the perspectives
of their own time, the 18th Century,
somewhat altering, most likely, the
pristine intentions of Ovid’s original
as I myself, however philologically
scrupulously – mea culpa, mea
culpa, mea maxima culpa, I must
contritely confess – can, can
be forewarned
but onwards to the completion of
the Creation
High o’er the clouds, and empty realms of wind,
The God a clearer space for Heav’n design’d;
Where fields of light, and liquid aether flow;
a description of Heaven, “fields of light and
liquid aether”
Purg’d from the pondrous dregs of Earth below.
“the pondrous dregs of Earth”, our dwelling
Scarce had the Pow’r distinguish’d these, when streight
The stars, no longer overlaid with weight,
Exert their heads, from underneath the mass;
And upward shoot, and kindle as they pass,
“the Pow’r”, or “the God, whatever God was he”,
earlier noted
while gravitation again allows the “fields of light”,
newly “distinguished”, or separated, from the
“pondrous dregs of Earth“, to “streight…upward
shoot, and kindle”, or sparkle, like firewood, or
nebulae, aurorae, very constellations
And with diffusive light adorn their heav’nly place.
diffusive, evanescent, aetherial, nearly
transcendental
Then, every void of Nature to supply,
With forms of Gods he fills the vacant sky:
New herds of beasts he sends, the plains to share:
New colonies of birds, to people air:
And to their oozy beds, the finny fish repair.
note that all life forms are “forms of Gods”,
and “birds”, anthropomorphically, no less
than “people air”
A creature of a more exalted kind
Was wanting yet, and then was Man design’d:
the design follows
Conscious of thought, of more capacious breast,
For empire form’d, and fit to rule the rest:
though the specific initial progenitor will remain
ever the secret of that Creator
Whether with particles of heav’nly fire
The God of Nature did his soul inspire,
Or Earth, but new divided from the sky
was it “heav’nly fire” or “Earth”, which malleable
And, pliant, still retain’d th’ aetherial energy:
we are, in other words, quintessentially,
however muddied, starlight
Which wise Prometheus temper’d into paste,
And, mixt with living streams, the godlike image cast.
Prometheus is the Titan who fashioned
us of clay, and gifted us with fire despite
the opposition of the Gods, for which he
was cruelly punished, but that’s another
story
Thus, while the mute creation downward bend
Their sight, and to their earthly mother tend,
mute creation, species who have no
language, animals, lizards, insects
Man looks aloft; and with erected eyes
Beholds his own hereditary skies.
hereditary, received from the Creator,
the primordial ancestor, generator
From such rude principles our form began;
And earth was metamorphos’d into Man.
R ! chard
April 7, 2020
“Metamorphoses” – Ovid, 104
“The West Wind“ (1891)
Winslow Homer
__________
next, the creation of climate
And as five zones th’ aetherial regions bind,
Five, correspondent, are to Earth assign’d:
the five zones are the equatorial zone, the two
temperate zones, and the polar zones
The sun with rays, directly darting down,
Fires all beneath, and fries the middle zone:
the equator gets the brunt of it
The two beneath the distant poles, complain
Of endless winter, and perpetual rain.
the poles get the other brunt of it
Betwixt th’ extreams, two happier climates hold
The temper that partakes of hot, and cold.
“temper”, as in “temperate”, as in zones
The fields of liquid air, inclosing all,
Surround the compass of this earthly ball:
fields of liquid air, cloud covers
The lighter parts lye next the fires above;
fires above, the sun and the stars
The grosser near the watry surface move:
“grosser” air, less pure, less aetherial
Thick clouds are spread, and storms engender there,
And thunder’s voice, which wretched mortals fear,
And winds that on their wings cold winter bear.
they gravitate towards the denser earth, creating
conditions “there” for storms, strife, thunder
ever so ominously
Nor were those blustring brethren left at large,
On seas, and shores, their fury to discharge:
blustring brethren, the winds, are not, we learn,
not apportioned, not not allocated
Bound as they are, and circumscrib’d in place,
They rend the world, resistless, where they pass;
And mighty marks of mischief leave behind;
Such is the rage of their tempestuous kind.
tempests, tsunamis, hurricanes
they call the winds
First Eurus to the rising morn is sent
(The regions of the balmy continent);
And Eastern realms, where early Persians run,
To greet the blest appearance of the sun.
Westward, the wanton Zephyr wings his flight;
Pleas’d with the remnants of departing light:
Fierce Boreas, with his off-spring, issues forth
T’ invade the frozen waggon of the North.
where we encounter, incidentally, aurorae borealis
While frowning Auster seeks the Southern sphere;
And rots, with endless rain, th’ unwholsom year.
it is to be noted that in 8 AD, when Metamorphoses
was purportedly first published, one gathers from
the text that the world was understood to be
spherical, with two poles, the boreal and the
austral, from which we later get the eponymously
named Australia
the world went flat, note, only later in the
Middle Ages
R ! chard
April 5, 2020
“Metamorphoses” – Ovid, 102
“To Be Titled“ (1987) –
Jean-Michel Basquiat
__________
next, according to Ovid, inspired, presumably,
by the Gods, is what happens before the world
is created
Before the seas, and this terrestrial ball,
which is to say, the earth
And Heav’n’s high canopy, that covers all,
One was the face of Nature; if a face:
the “face of Nature” was “One”, an
indistinguishable, perhaps not even, “face”
Rather a rude and indigested mass:
A lifeless lump, unfashion’d, and unfram’d,
Of jarring seeds; and justly Chaos nam’d.
this undifferentiated agglomeration, this “lifeless
lump” was called Chaos
note the “seeds”, however, potential, though
“jarring”, or conflicting, the genesis for what
is to follow
No sun was lighted up, the world to view;
No moon did yet her blunted horns renew:
the horns of the moon are visible when the
crescent moon lies flat on the horizon, in
the shape of a smile, presenting “horns”,
the twin elevated extensions
Nor yet was Earth suspended in the sky,
Nor pois’d, did on her own foundations lye:
or lie
Nor seas about the shores their arms had thrown;
But earth, and air, and water, were in one.
see again Chaos here
Thus air was void of light, and earth unstable,
And water’s dark abyss unnavigable.
No certain form on any was imprest;
All were confus’d, and each disturb’d the rest.
For hot and cold were in one body fixt;
And soft with hard, and light with heavy mixt.
next, the first metamorphosis
stay tuned
R ! chard
March 13, 2020
on love – “Nature Boy”
unidentified
_______
for Danielle and Joe
a few nights ago, friends came over, a
young couple, in the bloom of youth,
relatively speaking, half, approximately,
my age, I’m seventy, for a glass of wine
during a conversation about the many
knickknacks scattered about my
apartment, pictures, paintings,
assorted paraphernalia, memorabilia,
they asked, was there one piece of
information I could give them,
something not just physical, but
metaphysical, that could lead to a
good and meaningful life
after cautioning that any answer would
be way too complex, the question way
too broad, I nevertheless trotted out,
convivially, a few words of ready
wisdom, a couple of trusted and true
maxims I hold in store for such
occasions, personal precepts,
however seemingly flippant, I
faithfully and diligently live by
pray for grace, for instance, make sure
your tie’s on right, the only two
practicable positions in any
predicament, I’ve found
later, after privately thinking more
about it, I realized there is indeed a
specific answer, I’d been singing it
already for a while, to help me deal
with recent, and even accumulated,
loss, it is the punchline to this
wonderfully enchanted
composition, called Nature Boy
the greatest thing you’ll ever learn,
it knowingly advises
November 9, 2019
“Death is nothing at all…” – Henry Scott Holland
“St Paul’s Cathedral“
Thomas Hosmer Shepherd
_____________
upon learning of the recent demise
of my younger sister, my only sibling,
a friend sent me the following passage
“Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away
into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains
exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we
lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we
were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar
name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put
no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or
sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we
enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my
name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be
spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it.
Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was.
There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death
but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because
I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval,
somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well. Nothing
is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was
before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we
meet again!”
it is usually presented as a poem, but
was part of a sermon, rather, given by
Henry Scott Holland, the very pastor
who composed it, at St Paul’s
Cathedral, in London, after the death
of Edward Vll
listen
it expresses well the experience I’ve
had with others of my beloved
departed
intimations of my sister are already
popping up in my reality, soon, I told
another friend, I’ll be talking to her
more often than when she was not
gone
much as is the case with my father,
for instance, away some 30 years
now, but an abiding presence,
however mystical, still, and,
it appears, forever
I consider myself profoundly
blessed
R ! chard
June 20, 2019
on ego, in particular, mine
“Luncheon in the Studio“ (1868)
Édouard Manet
_________
you think I’ve got a big ego, I asked
a friend who’d just told me I had one,
not confrontationally but as a matter
of fact, I wasn’t offended, just curious,
I think I’m so humble, I answered,
usually, so deferential
she wouldn’t cede to my, to her,
manifestly improbable, argument
what do you call ego, I asked
what the definition is in the dictionary,
she answered, and pulled out her cell
phone to prove it
sure, I said, I know what the dictionary
says, but how does that apply to me
well, just what it says, she said
my mother reads in the paper that it’s
going to rain today, I said, then it
doesn’t, and I retort that only the
weather essentially knows about the
weather, but she still keeps to the
prognostications
one night I said, look, mom, the moon
is full, no, she answered, it’s a quarter
moon, it said so on the calendar, look,
I said again, it’s full, it’s a full moon,
but she wouldn’t believe me, it turned
out she’d been reading the previous
year’s almanac
print gives us Platonic ideals, standards
that we think definitive, I asserted, but
everything is in the eye of the beholder,
words are just approximations, nothing
but meeting places where we toss around
disparate ideas no firmer, nor distinct,
nor assured than conversations among
different languages, miscommunication
can be that wide
my friend tells me just talking like that
is proof of my big ego, but I still don’t
get it, I think I’m so courteous,
fundamentally, so congenial and, you
know, nice, otherwise
R ! chard
June 9, 2019
the conditional
“If Once You Have Slept on an Island“ (1996)
Jamie Wyeth
________
the conditional mood is easy, it always
follows if
if I had a hammer, for instance
or
if I were a rich man
it is not a real event, as Classical
representation would be in art, were I
to make that synesthetic juxtaposition,
which is to say, were I to replace the
visual sense with that of letters, but
rather like Surrealism, for instance,
in that other context, a superimposed
idealization
here’s a poem you’ve probably
already heard, or heard of, through
its final, and epochal, verse, Kipling’s
“If“, a towering instance of moral
suasion on our culture
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
in the spirit of juxtaposition, compare
that to Polonius’ admonition to his son,
Laertes, upon that young colt’s imminent
return to France, where he had earlier
been, reputedly, carousing
Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay’d for. There; my blessing with thee!
And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch’d, unfledged comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”, act 1, scene 3,
all, incidentally, in the imperative, the mood
of command, authority, however consequential
there, or not
a film called “If…” is also worth visiting
in this context, from the 1970s, with an
iconic soundtrack that gripped the
generation then that heard it, listen,
watch, the Missa Luba, be gripped
R ! chard
June 3, 2019
a juxtaposition of verb moods
“The Wanderer above a Sea of Fog“ (1818)
Caspar David Friedrich
_______________
a cardinal rule, the juxtaposition of two
things of the same sort will exponentially
increase the information gleaned of either
therefore the following
“The Impossible Dream“, listen
To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go
To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star
This is my quest, to follow that star
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far
To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march
Into hell for a heavenly cause
And I know if I’ll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lay peaceful and calm
When I’m laid to my rest
And the world will be better for this
That one man scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To fight the unbeatable foe
To reach the unreachable star
and “Climb Every Mountain“, listen again
Climb every mountain
Search high and low
Follow every byway
Every path you know
Climb every mountain
Ford every stream
Follow every rainbow
‘Till you find your dream
A dream that will need
All the love you can give
Every day of your life
For as long as you live
Climb every mountain
Ford every stream
Follow every rainbow
‘Till you find your dream
Climb every mountain
Ford every stream
Follow every rainbow
‘Till you find your dream
an initial similarity, they are both
inspirational
an initial divergence, the former is
in the infinitive mood, which is to
say that the lesson is for all time
in all places and for all people,
while the second is an imperative,
in other words, an exhortation,
something only pertaining to the
future, though the other conditions,
of place, and of person, can still
apply
note that the verse, in either, is in
the indicative, in keeping with, in
each, the altered air, the second,
and contrasting melody, which in
both, note, personalizes, makes
the recommendation actual, no
longer merely idealized, the
indicative is the only mood which
deals in facts, the other moods
are all imagined, dreamed
let me point out that in comparison
with songs in the indicative, love
songs and the like, the show tunes
above find their source in medieval
religious music, hymns, liturgical
stuff, and more recently,
comparatively, specifically in
England after the Protestant
Reformation with Handel’s both
church and ceremonial music
in which England went on to
specialize, incidentally, while other
forms of music there, the racier,
secular European stuff, had been
demonized, deemed sinful, and
thus proscribed
England would only get its mojo back
in the 1960s with the Beatles
R ! chard
May 19, 2019
the infinitive in Shakespeare’s “To be, or not to be”
Richibi's Weblog 