Ovid | Richibi's Weblog

(1st century AD)

______________

before moving forward with the trials

of Io in Ovid’s poem, let me interject

a few extracurricular opinions

a great work of art, be it poetry, prose,

a painting, a piece of music, is indicated

by what you can read between the lines

this very Ovid is such an example,

interrupted, as it is, by my

but a better example, a more personal

one, I would think, would be that of

listening to music, and finding oneself

wandering, often often, in all kinds of

apparently unrelated areas of

introspection, before being drawn

back into the piece, the present, often

unexpectedly, when it recaptures, with

artful ingenuity, an arresting mixture of

substance and style according to the

poet’s artistry, one’s errant attention,

helping one find one’s way back home

to rekindle again and again your

attention, therein lies the art

the journey, the reverie, has been the

point of the music, where it is that the

enchantment, and I use that word

advisedly here, has taken you, that

jaunt has been your part of the

communication, which has turned it

into, indeed, a conversation

all art tries to do that

here are a few of my own reveries

around Ovid’s poem, that it must be

read as a cooperation in this instance

between Ovid and John Dryden, who

translated it, along with the help, here

and there throughout the work, of a

few other noteworthies, who must be

acknowledged

it would be impossible to translate

alliteration, onomatopeia, other

literary devices from one language

to another, these exist only, and

specifically, in the individual

vernacular, like fingerprints, the

personal and particular impression

of teeth, in people, for example

of a more technical nature is the

fact that though Dryden‘s verse

Shakespeare‘s shtick, a notably

conversational metre, Ovid‘s

dactylic hexameter is of a heroic

cadence, orotund and imperious,

like ceremonial music is

unmistakably different from more

lilting popular ditties

the point is that this translation of

Metamorphoses must be read, in

my opinion, as a collaboration

between Ovid for his substance,

which is to say, the essential

story, and John Dryden for his

style

for better or for worse

otherwise we must learn Latin

an interesting element of the style,

meanwhile, I’ve uncovered, upon

reading this text, is that the

apostrophe that is often removed

from verbs we see today with the

e typically installed before the d,

**in the first line below, cry’d, for**

instance, reply’d in the next,

would’ve been that the poet was

indicating, in his 1717, by the

insistent elision, that the letter

not be pronounced, where

custom had earlier had it that it

often was

for a more vivid impression, compare

bless’d with blessed, both pronunciations

still in use today, where the second

spelling, the one with the e, is a

throwback to a time when most of these

participles would’ve been voiced in that

manner

1717, we learn, however incidentally,

was a year when the English language

**was evolving, their is not was turning**

into their isn’t

but back now to Ovid

Ah wretched me! her mournful father cry’d;
She, with a sigh, to wretched me reply’d:

how, between two profoundly

different oratories, Inachus, Io‘s

father, wonders, to translate

see my exegesis above

About her milk-white neck, his arms he threw;
And wept, and then these tender words ensue.

And art thou she, whom I have sought around
The world, and have at length so sadly found?
So found, is worse than lost: with mutual words
Thou answer’st not, no voice thy tongue affords:

mutual words,a shared language

But sighs are deeply drawn from out thy breast;
And speech deny’d, by lowing is express’d.

lowing, the sound a cow makes

Unknowing, I prepar’d thy bridal bed;
With empty hopes of happy issue fed.

happy issue, children

But now the husband of a herd must be
Thy mate, and bell’wing sons thy progeny.

bell’wing, bellowing

Inachus fears Io will be mothering

calves

Oh, were I mortal, death might bring relief:
But now my God-head but extends my grief:
Prolongs my woes, of which no end I see,
And makes me curse my immortality!

note that even the gods in this

mythology suffer

More had he said, but fearful of her stay,
The starry guardian drove his charge away,

The starry guardian, Argus

To some fresh pasture; on a hilly height
He sate himself, and kept her still in sight.

to sate, to refresh, satisfy

Io is still not out of the woods

R ! chard

Leave a comment

“The Transformation of Io into a Heyfer” (III) – Ovid

______________

The head of Argus (as with stars the skies)
Was compass’d round, and wore an hundred eyes.

**not only did [t]he head of Argus have**

an hundred eyes, but they circled,

***compass’d,* round his head, *as with***

stars the skies, as with stars the

note the passive form of the verb to

compass in the two lines above

standing in for the inverted sentences

I earlier made mention of as literary

devices Ovid, or Dryden, uses

throughout the poem

the standard sentence, the active

sentence, should read, an hundred

eyes compass’d [t]he head of Argus

compass’d, encircled

But two by turns their lids in slumber steep;
The rest on duty still their station keep;
Nor cou’d the total constellation sleep.

never could all the eyes, the total

***constellation,* sleep, or *in slumber***

steep, since only two of them would

turn[ ] their lids, close, at a time,

while the others continued diligently

to keep watch

steep, incidentally, is a verb here,

as in to put the kettle on, not an

adjective, as in dauntingly

pitched, threateningly angled

Thus, ever present, to his eyes, and mind,
His charge was still before him, tho’ behind.

even when she was standing behind

him, Argus could still see Io, [h]is

charge, with the eyes he had in the

back of his head

In fields he suffer’d her to feed by Day,
But when the setting sun to night gave way,
The captive cow he summon’d with a call;
And drove her back, and ty’d her to the stall.
On leaves of trees, and bitter herbs she fed,
Heav’n was her canopy, bare earth her bed:
So hardly lodg’d, and to digest her food,
She drank from troubled streams, defil’d with mud.

hardly lodg’d, given difficult living

conditions

Her woeful story fain she wou’d have told,
With hands upheld, but had no hands to hold.

fain, gladly

Her head to her ungentle keeper bow’d,
She strove to speak, she spoke not, but she low’d:

to low is to make the sound that

cows do, to moo

Affrighted with the noise, she look’d around,
And seem’d t’ inquire the author of the sound.

the sound that she herself was making

**not only [a]ffrighted her, frightened her,**

but had her wondering where could

it possibly be coming from

Once on the banks where often she had play’d
(Her father’s banks), she came,

Her father, Inachus, god of rivers

and there survey’d
Her alter’d visage, and her branching head;
And starting, from her self she wou’d have fled.

much as the sound of her altered

**voice had [a]ffrighted Io, now her**

reflection in the water chastened

her as well, enough to make her

start, be startled, and want to run

away from her self

Her fellow nymphs, familiar to her eyes,
Beheld, but knew her not in this disguise.
Ev’n Inachus himself was ignorant;
And in his daughter, did his daughter want.

no one recognized Io, not even

her father, who, in his daughter,

the one who stood before him,

the altered Io, could not make

her out

did his daughter want, as in to

be found wanting, in the cow,

to not even be suggested in

the, however conspicuous,

heifer, not at all part of the

picture

Io is there but, simultaneously,

disconcertingly, not there

She follow’d where her fellows went, as she
Were still a partner of the company:

it should be remembered that

Io was a beautiful heifer, even

Juno had been impressed, so

**that her fellows, her companions,**

only other maidens, I’ll point out,

fellows taking on its sexually

indiscriminate meaning here,

not at all restricted to males,

would have easily let her follow

note the symmetry, incidentally,

between follow’d and fellows,

the nearly hidden alliteration,

a delightful literary effect,

though if you blinked you’d

miss it

They stroak her neck; the gentle heyfer stands,
And her neck offers to their stroaking hands.
Her father gave her grass; the grass she took;
And lick’d his palms, and cast a piteous look;
And in the language of her eyes, she spoke.

her lowing would’ve had no effect,

would’ve let no one in on the fact

that beneath the animal exterior

there might be an Io

She wou’d have told her name, and ask’d relief,
But wanting words, in tears she tells her grief.
Which,

and here we get the punchline,

the plot twist, which turns this

story into, relatively speaking,

a total enchantment, as though

Ovid were giving us, prefiguring

in fact, Walt Disney, our own

20th Century mythologist

with her foot she makes him understand;
And prints the name of Io in the sand.

R ! chard

Leave a comment

“The Transformation of Daphne into a Lawrel” (III) – Ovid

**“Laurel” (1901)**

_______

however ardently might’ve Phoebus

been pleading his case before

Daphne, his, however recalcitrant,

intended, flashing his divine pedigree,

vowing to put all that aside to serve

only her

She heard not half; so furiously she flies;
And on her ear th’ imperfect accent dies,

th’ imperfect accent might be the

unnatural tone of a divinity Daphne

might be hearing, the unusual timbre

of a deity’s voice, I can’t imagine Ovid

would be suggesting that Daphne and

Phoebus spoke different Greek dialects

**perhaps th’ imperfect accent is the**

unsettling manner of his entreaties,

his indecorous urgency

poets can be confounding

Fear gave her wings; and as she fled, the wind
Increasing, spread her flowing hair behind;
And left her legs and thighs expos’d to view:
Which made the God more eager to pursue.

the pagan gods were notoriously

mischievous, spirited, impulsive,

quite human, never sublime and

irreproachable as is the Abrahamic

Supreme Deity

the pagan gods lived in the fields

and streams, the hills and vales,

the seas and mountains, that

surrounded Greek and Roman

communities, Olympus was their

steepest height, never the

supernatural elevations, beyond

even our visible heaven, that our

present pervasive monotheism

proclaims

The God was young, and was too hotly bent
To lose his time in empty compliment:
But led by love, and fir’d with such a sight,
Impetuously pursu’d his near delight.

often, the gods of antiquity were

perverse, not at all blameless,

not innocent, not irreproachable,

like the one and only god that,

today, in its several interpretations,

even murderously conflicting, rules,

oversees, mostly, our present, at

least Western, faith communities

As when th’ impatient greyhound slipt from far,

Bounds o’er the glebe to course the fearful hare,

glebe, fields

She in her speed does all her safety lay;
And he with double speed pursues the prey;
O’er-runs her at the sitting turn, and licks
His chaps in vain, and blows upon the flix:

flix, fur, the greyhound’s pelt

perhaps greyhounds do this, blow

upon their flix, you’ll have to ask

Ovid, or maybe Dryden, his

translator

She scapes, and for the neighb’ring covert strives,

a covert, a bush in which to hide

And gaining shelter, doubts if yet she lives:

doubts if yet she lives, she can’t

believe she made it

If little things with great we may compare,
Such was the God, and such the flying fair,

***the flying fair,* Daphne, *the God,***

She urg’d by fear, her feet did swiftly move,
But he more swiftly, who was urg’d by love.

love, as Ovid, or is it, once again,

Dryden, who defines it, urg’d,

compelled by hormones, not at all

our romantic conception of it

He gathers ground upon her in the chace:
Now breathes upon her hair, with nearer pace;
And just is fast’ning on the wish’d embrace.

Red Riding Hood and the Big

Bad Wolf

The nymph grew pale, and in a mortal fright,
Spent with the labour of so long a flight;

Spent, defeated

And now despairing, cast a mournful look
Upon the streams of her paternal brook;

her father, Peneus, was a river god,

if you’ll remember, paternal brook,

the rill, the rivulet, of her father

Oh help, she cry’d, in this extreamest need!
If water Gods are deities indeed:

if there is a god, be with me, she

cry’d, you, yourself, I’m sure, have

been there, though Daphne‘s faith

was grounded in help, in this case,

from her father, god of, appropriately

in this instance, streams

Gape Earth, and this unhappy wretch intomb;

I’d rather die, Daphne pleads, I’d

rather the earth swallowed me up,

I’d rather be intomb[ed]

Or change my form, whence all my sorrows come.

transform me, rid me of what makes

me appealing, Daphne pleads

Scarce had she finish’d, when her feet she found
Benumb’d with cold, and fasten’d to the ground:
A filmy rind about her body grows;

a condition I’ve found not unlike the

ravages I call, ironically, bark, crusty

imperfections that afflict my own

ageing body

Her hair to leaves, her arms extend to boughs:
The nymph is all into a lawrel gone;

Daphne is turning into a tree,

a lawrel

The smoothness of her skin remains alone.

of Daphne, only her smoothness

remains

Yet Phoebus loves her still, and casting round
Her bole, his arms, some little warmth he found.

bole, the stem of a tree

The tree still panted in th’ unfinish’d part:

where Daphne had not yet become

a tree, she still panted, pulsed

Not wholly vegetive, and heav’d her heart.

heav’d her heart, passionately

reacted

He fixt his lips upon the trembling rind;

rind, bark

It swerv’d aside, and his embrace declin’d.

kisses not at all sweeter than wine,

said the lawrel

To whom the God, Because thou canst not be
My mistress, I espouse thee for my tree:

Phoebus begins to speak directly

**here, Because thou canst not be, /**

My mistress, he says, I espouse

thee for my tree:

espouse, marry

Be thou the prize of honour, and renown;

you will be, he continues, the

prize that will represent heroes

The deathless poet, and the poem, crown.

honour, first of all, worthy, deathless,

poets, Phoebus commands, let the

**laurel wreath crown deserving**

wordsmiths

Ovid had reason to champion poets,

he’d been exiled from Rome by the

Emperor, Augustus, his catering to

the Roman ruler becomes

intermittently evident throughout

Thou shalt the Roman festivals adorn,
And, after poets, be by victors worn.

victors, Olympic champions, notably

Thou shalt returning Caesar’s triumph grace;

Ovid curries imperial favour here with

Augustus, by simply immortalizing in

poetry the name of Caesar, the new

Emperor’s great-uncle, and adoptive

father, making his own personal

nemesis shine, for what it might be

worth, by association

When pomps shall in a long procession pass.

the parades will be long ones

Wreath’d on the posts before his palace wait;

the laurel leaves will garland the

posts, stations, before, in front of,

the imperial palace

And be the sacred guardian of the gate.
Secure from thunder, and unharm’d by Jove,

even Jove / Jupiter, god of gods,

will stand by, honour, the symbol

of the laurel

Unfading as th’ immortal Pow’rs above:

Unfading, into very eternity

it’s interesting to note that the

laurel has not lost its significance

despite the intervening centuries,

epochs, we find reference to it even

in the honorific title of laureate, as

in Nobel laureate, or even in the

accolade of baccalaureate, the

bachelor’s degree, the prestigious

academic accomplishment

Unfading indeed

And as the locks of Phoebus are unshorn,

Phoebus always sports perfect

hair

So shall perpetual green thy boughs adorn.

it would seem that, according to

this, laurel leaves, perpetual

green, don’t ever lose their

colour, but I can’t attest to this,

being a poet rather than an

arborist, a gardener, though

bay leaves, laurel, even dry,

don’t turn brown, I’ve since

noticed

The grateful tree was pleas’d with what he said;
And shook the shady honours of her head.

and they all lived happily ever

after

or didn’t

myths are the enduring fairy tales

that adults continue to believe in,

according to their culture, about

men and women rather than

boys and girls, they help us, like

fairy tales, make up our moral

order

R ! chard

Leave a comment

“Metamorphoses” (The Giants’ War, XII) – Ovid

__________

A thin circumference of land appears;
And Earth, but not at once, her visage rears,
And peeps upon the seas from upper grounds;

as the land begins to peep[ ] through

the water, a circumference of land

appears, a circle of Earth within the

earlier universal water

to rear, to raise upright, boldly, the better,

here, for Earth‘s visage, Earth‘s face, to

***peep[ ]* upon the seas from *newly gained***

upper grounds

The streams, but just contain’d within their bounds,
By slow degrees into their channels crawl;

streams, just recently redefining their

boundaries, or bounds, [b]y slow

degrees settle, become waterways,

channels, rivers, rivulets, rills

I love crawl here, incidentally, the slow,

insidious, infiltration of a territory, silent

**and immutable, as [t]he streams, at the**

dispassionate pace of nature, find their

individual course

And Earth increases, as the waters fall.

the waters fall, the waters recede

In longer time the tops of trees appear,

[i]n longer time, after a while

Which mud on their dishonour’d branches bear.

for which the only solution here, would

be, I thought, however ironically, a

shower, rain

but I digress

At length the world was all restor’d to view;
But desolate, and of a sickly hue:

see, for instance, above

Nature beheld her self, and stood aghast,
A dismal desart, and a silent waste.

desart, is desert, even my spellcheck

insisted

meanwhile, back on Mount Parnassus,

our two survivors, look around

Which when Deucalion, with a piteous look
Beheld, he wept, and thus to Pyrrha spoke:

let me point out that what follows,

which is to say when Deucalion

… thus to Pyrrha spoke, we have

an extended monologue, rather

than a narration, the poet, Ovid,

has given a voice to Deucalion,

his character, his creation

I was reminded of Shakespeare‘s

monologues, especially since the

Shakespeare‘s signature poetic

rhythm

it should be noted that this translation

of Metamorphoses is from 1717, a

century and a very year after

Shakespeare‘s demise, in 1616, time

for poets to have imbibed his already

profound influence

nor could they not have been marked

by the spirit of their own time, and the

many transformative epochs since

Metamorphoses had been written, in

the year 1, that would’ve affected the

translation

the original Latin text, for instance,

was in dactylic hexameter, not

Oh wife, oh sister, oh of all thy kind
The best, and only creature left behind,
By kindred, love, and now by dangers joyn’d;
Of multitudes, who breath’d the common air,
We two remain; a species in a pair:
The rest the seas have swallow’d; nor have we
Ev’n of this wretched life a certainty.
The clouds are still above; and, while I speak,
A second deluge o’er our heads may break.
Shou’d I be snatcht from hence, and thou remain,
Without relief, or partner of thy pain,
How cou’dst thou such a wretched life sustain?
Shou’d I be left, and thou be lost, the sea
That bury’d her I lov’d, shou’d bury me.
Oh cou’d our father his old arts inspire,
And make me heir of his informing fire,
That so I might abolisht Man retrieve,
And perisht people in new souls might live.
But Heav’n is pleas’d, nor ought we to complain,
That we, th’ examples of mankind, remain.

cou’d our father, Jove, Deucalion asks,

breathe into me his inspiration, his old

arts, his informing fire, so that I could

reconstitute Man, retrieve him, and

supply the perisht people with new, and

presumably more honourable, souls

He said; the careful couple joyn their tears:

He said, or this he spoke, and the

couple joyn their tears

And then invoke the Gods, with pious prayers.
Thus, in devotion having eas’d their grief,
From sacred oracles they seek relief;
And to Cephysus’ brook their way pursue:

Cephysus, or Cephissus, was a river god,

associated with the river Cephissus, which

runs through Central Greece

The stream was troubled, but the ford they knew;

the ford, the way across the stream

With living waters, in the fountain bred,

living waters would gush from a

spring, around which a fountain

would’ve been built

They sprinkle first their garments, and their head,
Then took the way, which to the temple led.
The roofs were all defil’d with moss, and mire,
The desart altars void of solemn fire.
Before the gradual, prostrate they ador’d;
The pavement kiss’d; and thus the saint implor’d.

the gradual is a hymn sung within

the context of a full religious service

desart here is again desert, but in

this instance signifying deserted

the saint, an anachronism here,

for saints were not at all even a

concept at the time of Ovid,

would’ve been Themis, goddess,

at Delphi, on Mount Parnassus,

of Divine Justice

R ! chard

Leave a comment

“Metamorphoses” (The Giants’ War, VII) – Ovid

**“The Garden of Earthly Delights“ (1510 – 1515)**

__________

Nor from his patrimonial Heaven alone
Is Jove content to pour his vengeance down;

let me say something about Heaven

here, a concept that is quite different

from the earlier Ancient Greek and

Roman understanding of the term,

was it, for that matter, even a term

then, of the Ancients, that would’ve

meant nothing other to them than

the blue sky above, not at all an

area reached by extraterrestrial

transcendence

the abode of the gods and goddesses

at the time of Ovid was Mount Olympus,

and had been for centuries, much closer

to the earth than the more ethereal home

we imagine of the gods today, every one

of them, however professedly uniquely

supreme, otherworldly

all gods, note, no goddesses, what’s up

with that, I’ve long wondered

the Underworld was for the Ancients

the dwelling place of the departed,

somewhere deep beneath the earth,

or at the very ends of all the seas,

never totally beyond the very

cosmos, as our prevailing faiths

now uniformly preach

the image of Heaven, Hell, and

Purgatory for that matter, that last

a completely Catholic invention – to

account for the salvation, however

partial, of innocent souls deprived

of Heaven for not having been

christened, though not able yet, at

so early an age, to have sinned –

was pretty well codified by Dante

in the 14th Century in his

**masterpiece, The Divine Comedy,**

a daunting, but profoundly

illuminating read, which has

shaped our impression of these

several possible afterlives ever

since

this particular translation, however

magisterial, but crafted after over a

thousand years of Catholic cultural

domination, cannot avoid the impact

of the Catholic understanding of

Heaven

neither, now, can we, for that matter,

intimately imbued as we are with

the binding faiths of our relatively

more recent forebears

be therefore perspicacious

Aid from his brother of the seas he craves,
To help him with auxiliary waves.

later, we’ll learn that Jove’s brother

of the seas is Neptune, god of all

aqueous things

The watry tyrant calls his brooks and floods,
Who rowl from mossie caves (their moist abodes);

rowl, or roil, upset

mossie, mossy

And with perpetual urns his palace fill:
To whom in brief, he thus imparts his will.

Neptune is stockpiling water, with

the help of his conforming waterways

Small exhortation needs;

no time, in other words, no need,

to do much coaxing, much

exhortation

your pow’rs employ:

use, put into action, or employ,

your pow’rs

And this bad world, so Jove requires, destroy.

Jove, god of gods, is here commanding,

authorizing, orchestrating

Let loose the reins to all your watry store:
Bear down the damms, and open ev’ry door.

The floods

will inexorably follow

stay tuned

R ! chard

Leave a comment

Beethoven – piano sonata no.31, op.110 (3rd movement)‏

woman-reading-in-a-garden-1903.jpg!Large

“Woman Reading in a Garden“ (1902-03)

Henri Matisse

_______

perhaps my best teacher ever was
my father, others never questioned
the orthodoxy, spewing out the
curriculum like it was sacred, dead,
untouchable, depriving it of its very
worth

my father was a philosopher, God

was a question, not an answer, I,

at the time, needed an answer

we were sent to a Catholic school,

my sister and I, where God was in

everything, everywhere, omnipotent,

omniscient, and, like a father then,

autocratic, industrious, demanding,

not unopposed to punishment

sins against the Father could be

summarized, at that age, briefly,

do not kill, do not lie, do not

disobey your parents, do not

cheat on your husband, wife,

and follow all the rituals of the

Church, the Ten Christian

Commandments, brought to

you universally then by Charlton

“Moses” Heston, under the aegis

of Cecil B. DeMille

none of these graded offences

applied to me, really, then, but

lying, and disobeying one’s

parents, the others were all so

remote as to be inconsequential,

though the Church kept up on

our family’s abrogations of

religious rites – non-attendance

at Sunday mass, eating meat

on Fridays, worse – while

nevertheless tending dutifully

to our wayward souls, they told

us, holding out for a final repentant

confession

we never lied at home, I’d lied about

something once, and was so daunted

when my father probed, I sweated,

must’ve turned purple, not just red,

of embarrassment, I knew I couldn’t

use that tactic again, I’d inexorably

blush, flush

who put the Brylcreem on the dog,

he’d queried

not me, I trembled

my sister stood beside me, might

not have even known anything

about it, I can’t remember, though

I recall her dismay, I think, at having

been so blithely thrown under the

bus, or maybe that’s just me

extrapolating

my dad turned back to what he’d

been doing, having, I’d understood,

got his answer, proving himself to

be to me thereby omniscient, I’d

have no chance, I gathered, against

something like that, this turned me

into a good, an at least conscientious,

person

my teachers, paradoxically, only

ever took marks off for technical

stuff, Math, History, French, they

never taught me lessons

a teacher, once, had asked me to

stand at the head of the class and

read a passage from Shakespeare,

be Romeo, Mark Antony, Lear, I

can’t remember which

“O, pardon me, thou bleeding

piece of earth, / That I am meek

and gentle with these butchers!”,

I uttered, fraught with emotion,

“Thou art the ruins of the noblest

man / That ever lived in the tide

of times”

in my mind and in my body I was

Mark Antony there, shot through

with the weight of his friend’s

brutal death, his own irretrievable

loss

my teacher laughed

what, I asked

you’re right into it, aren’t you, he

replied, and shut me up right there

to any public display of expression

I didn’t stop reading Shakespeare

though, but by myself

later I read Homer, Ovid, Proust,

others, did the same with music

and art, made countless lifelong

friends thereby, people I’ve always

been able to turn to, even just in

ruminative thought as their stories

still pervaded me, diligently leading

still the way, like guardian angels,

maybe

here’s one

Richard

Leave a comment

Nemo – “Ennead I” by Plotinus (3)‏

having thrilled at the very first moment of an

apparent convergence on the Internet with

a kindred spirit, of the intellect, let me point

out, rather than of the more pressing, for

some, senses, I gurgled out a ready program

of philosophical positions to him meant to

engage and perhaps more profoundly

together ponder

to my delight the conversation took hold

and is ensuing, I thought I’d share

here is the third instalment, the first two are

available on my counterpart’s impressive blog,

“Books on Trial” at his first text on Plotinus’

“Ennead”, of which to date he’s got three

at the bottom in the comments section,

should you be interested

how, of course, could you not

Richard

_____________________

Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2013 19:19:11 +0000
To Richibi’s Weblog

From: comment-reply@wordpress.com
Subject: [New comment] “Ennead I” by Plotinus

Descartes did not prove the existence of “I”. To prove that something exists, you cannot presuppose its existence and say “something” does this or that. In other words, “I exist” is the condition that comes before “I think”, not after. If Descartes wanted to prove the existence of “I”, he made the mistake of circular logic, putting the cart before the horse.Even if we grant that the individual is conscious of the “I”. Does the “I” exist as a part, a mere concept, in his thoughts, just as other people exist as mere concepts of his thoughts, or is there an “I” beyond his consciousness? To borrow the imagery of Plotinus, does the Moon exist as part of the reflection in the water, or does it exist independently outside the water?

Plato’s theory encompasses both change and immutability. They are incomplete without the other, nay, they cannot exist without the other. This is proven by our own experience. We can observe changes only because we’re using something static as a reference

first of all, Nemo, thank you for this conversation,
I’m finding this exercise very stimulating, not many
have called me on my philosophical positions, not
many, I suspect, having given these positions much
thought in the first place, you are perhaps a kindred
spirit, what a delight

and as such I can only be, respectfully and humbly
ever, forthright

in a Socratic, as it were, contract

this part of Plato, incidentally, is the only part I accept,
his celebration of the Socratic Method, to put words
later into the greater philosopher’s mouth, to me, is
highly unethical, especially to spout with that authority
such drivel

you can tell I don’t like Plato

the flurry of consciousness is the clue, in Descartes,
the moment of realization, the inkling of perception,
that allows us to know that something is behind that,
producing that, without which there would be no
actuality, that something is what we call “I”

interestingly, “Cogito, ergo sum”, the Latin, often used,
translation of the original French, “Je pense, donc je
suis”, doesn’t show an “I” in its very grammar, which
is an apt demonstration of the proposition we are
discussing

if there is conscioussness of something being

conscious, something must be being conscious,

that something Descartes called “moi”, we call

“me”, others call whatever they call it

therefore I am

but I could not have done that without consciousness,

nebulous and indeterminate consciousness, but that’s

all we have, all we’ve ever had

Plato tried to fashion an alternate, paternalistic, I might

add, conscience driven, later driven-by-Christian-fear,

reality, somewhere out there, that lasted for all of the

Middle, did I say Middle or Dark, Ages, a good thousand,

count them, thousand, years, conservatively even

speaking

Nietzsche got rid of that, finally, but still all of nearly

five hundred years later

oof

where does Plato “encompass[–] both change and

immutability“, “The Republic” makes short shrift of

that, how is this “proven by our own experience”

I like “We can observe changes only because we’re

using something static as a reference“, where did

you get that, I’ll have to ponder it

but “static” is my stumbling block, in a world
I cannot see as in any way static, autocratic,
unbending

help

read also Ovid

cheers

Richard

psst: I’m putting this thrilling conversation on my

blog, look out for it

Leave a comment

September 13, 2012

the ensuing Ages – Ovid‏

“The Siver Age“ (c.1516)

Lucas Cranach the Elder

________

it is interesting to note how profoundly Ovid‘s mythological

setting marked Christian notions of the Creation, which at

least in the West have held sway now for some nearly two

thousand years

it is a tale then twice told, the last time however with not

half even the first one’s contagious exuberance, I think

I believe more in Ovid then, also in Cranach and da Cortona,

worthy indeed proponents of that earlier oracular deity

Richard

____________________

The Silver Age

But when good Saturn, banish’d from above,
Was driv’n to Hell, the world was under Jove.
Succeeding times a silver age behold,
Excelling brass, but more excell’d by gold.
Then summer, autumn, winter did appear:
And spring was but a season of the year.
The sun his annual course obliquely made,
Good days contracted, and enlarg’d the bad.
Then air with sultry heats began to glow;
The wings of winds were clogg’d with ice and snow;
And shivering mortals, into houses driv’n,
Sought shelter from th’ inclemency of Heav’n.
Those houses, then, were caves, or homely sheds;
With twining oziers fenc’d; and moss their beds.
Then ploughs, for seed, the fruitful furrows broke,
And oxen labour’d first beneath the yoke.

The Brazen Age

To this came next in course, the brazen age:
A warlike offspring, prompt to bloody rage,
Not impious yet…

“The Age of Iron” (1637)

Pietro da Cortona

__________

The Iron Age

Hard steel succeeded then:
And stubborn as the metal, were the men.
Truth, modesty, and shame, the world forsook:
Fraud, avarice, and force, their places took.
Then sails were spread, to every wind that blew.
Raw were the sailors, and the depths were new:
Trees, rudely hollow’d, did the waves sustain;
E’re ships in triumph plough’d the watry plain.

Then land-marks limited to each his right:
For all before was common as the light.
Nor was the ground alone requir’d to bear
Her annual income to the crooked share,
But greedy mortals, rummaging her store,
Digg’d from her entrails first the precious oar;
Which next to Hell, the prudent Gods had laid;
And that alluring ill, to sight display’d.
Thus cursed steel, and more accursed gold,
Gave mischief birth, and made that mischief bold:
And double death did wretched Man invade,
By steel assaulted, and by gold betray’d,
Now (brandish’d weapons glittering in their hands)
Mankind is broken loose from moral bands;
No rights of hospitality remain:
The guest, by him who harbour’d him, is slain,
The son-in-law pursues the father’s life;
The wife her husband murders, he the wife.
The step-dame poyson for the son prepares;
The son inquires into his father’s years.
Faith flies, and piety in exile mourns;
And justice, here opprest, to Heav’n returns.

Ovid

(from “Metamorphoses“, Book I, in a translation by

Sir Samuel Garth, John Dryden, Alexander Pope,

Joseph Addison, William Congreve and other

eminent hands)

Leave a comment

September 8, 2012

“The Golden Age” – Ovid‏

“The Golden Age“ (1637)

Pietro da Cortona

____________

Eden revisited

Richard

__________________

The Golden Age

The golden age was first; when Man yet new,
No rule but uncorrupted reason knew:
And, with a native bent, did good pursue.
Unforc’d by punishment, un-aw’d by fear,
His words were simple, and his soul sincere;
Needless was written law, where none opprest:
The law of Man was written in his breast:
No suppliant crowds before the judge appear’d,
No court erected yet, nor cause was heard:
But all was safe, for conscience was their guard.
The mountain-trees in distant prospect please,
E’re yet the pine descended to the seas:
E’re sails were spread, new oceans to explore:
And happy mortals, unconcern’d for more,
Confin’d their wishes to their native shore.
No walls were yet; nor fence, nor mote, nor mound,
Nor drum was heard, nor trumpet’s angry sound:
Nor swords were forg’d; but void of care and crime,
The soft creation slept away their time.
The teeming Earth, yet guiltless of the plough,
And unprovok’d, did fruitful stores allow:
Content with food, which Nature freely bred,
On wildings and on strawberries they fed;
Cornels and bramble-berries gave the rest,
And falling acorns furnish’d out a feast.
The flow’rs unsown, in fields and meadows reign’d:
And Western winds immortal spring maintain’d.
In following years, the bearded corn ensu’d
From Earth unask’d, nor was that Earth renew’d.
From veins of vallies, milk and nectar broke;
And honey sweating through the pores of oak.

Ovid

(from “Metamorphoses“, Book I, in a translation by

Sir Samuel Garth, John Dryden, Alexander Pope,

Joseph Addison, William Congreve and other

eminent hands)

Leave a comment

	Tonyia on November / Month of the Sonata…
	how to listen to mus… on how to listen to music if you…
	how to listen to mus… on how to listen to music if you…
	how to listen to mus… on how to listen to music if you…
	richibi on “Metamorphoses” (The Giants…

Richibi’s Weblog

Tag: Ovid

June 11, 2020

“The Transformation of Io into a Heyfer” (IV) – Ovid

“Io Wearing Bovine Horns Watched over by Argos on Hera’s Orders“

(1st century AD)

______________

before moving forward with the trials

of Io in Ovid’s poem, let me interject

a few extracurricular opinions

a great work of art, be it poetry, prose,

a painting, a piece of music, is indicated

by what you can read between the lines

this very Ovid is such an example,

interrupted, as it is, by my

commentaries

but a better example, a more personal

one, I would think, would be that of

listening to music, and finding oneself

wandering, often often, in all kinds of

apparently unrelated areas of

introspection, before being drawn

back into the piece, the present, often

unexpectedly, when it recaptures, with

artful ingenuity, an arresting mixture of

substance and style according to the

poet’s artistry, one’s errant attention,

helping one find one’s way back home

to rekindle again and again your

attention, therein lies the art

the journey, the reverie, has been the

point of the music, where it is that the

enchantment, and I use that word

advisedly here, has taken you, that

jaunt has been your part of the

communication, which has turned it

into, indeed, a conversation

all art tries to do that

here are a few of my own reveries

around Ovid’s poem, that it must be

read as a cooperation in this instance

between Ovid and John Dryden, who

translated it, along with the help, here

and there throughout the work, of a

few other noteworthies, who must be

acknowledged

it would be impossible to translate

alliteration, onomatopeia, other

literary devices from one language

to another, these exist only, and

specifically, in the individual

vernacular, like fingerprints, the

personal and particular impression

of teeth, in people, for example

of a more technical nature is the

fact that though Dryden‘s verse

is in iambic pentameter,

Shakespeare‘s shtick, a notably

conversational metre, Ovid‘s

dactylic hexameter is of a heroic

cadence, orotund and imperious,

like ceremonial music is

unmistakably different from more

lilting popular ditties

the point is that this translation of

Metamorphoses must be read, in

my opinion, as a collaboration

between Ovid for his substance,

which is to say, the essential

story, and John Dryden for his

style

for better or for worse

otherwise we must learn Latin

an interesting element of the style,

meanwhile, I’ve uncovered, upon

reading this text, is that the

apostrophe that is often removed

from verbs we see today with the

e typically installed before the d,

in the first line below, cry’d, for

**in the first line below, cry’d, for**

**was evolving, their is not was turning**

Ah wretched me! her mournful father cry’d;
She, with a sigh, to wretched me reply’d:

About her milk-white neck, his arms he threw;
And wept, and then these tender words ensue.

And art thou she, whom I have sought around
The world, and have at length so sadly found?
So found, is worse than lost: with mutual words
Thou answer’st not, no voice thy tongue affords:

But sighs are deeply drawn from out thy breast;
And speech deny’d, by lowing is express’d.

Unknowing, I prepar’d thy bridal bed;
With empty hopes of happy issue fed.

But now the husband of a herd must be
Thy mate, and bell’wing sons thy progeny.

Oh, were I mortal, death might bring relief:
But now my God-head but extends my grief:
Prolongs my woes, of which no end I see,
And makes me curse my immortality!