tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9139185550151027390.post3307273094551129989..comments2024-01-31T01:39:02.006-08:00Comments on Vanitas Magazine: TC: Inferno V: Francesca's Anaphora (Certain Evil Souls)VANITAShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10486783210928118377noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9139185550151027390.post-81609945134113059722009-04-01T23:48:00.000-07:002009-04-01T23:48:00.000-07:00A Dream, After Reading Dante's Episode Of Paolo An...A Dream, After Reading Dante's Episode Of Paolo And Francesca<BR/> <BR/> As Hermes once took to his feathers light,<BR/>When lulled Argus, baffled, swooned and slept,<BR/>So on a Delphic reed, my idle spright<BR/>So played, so charmed, so conquered, so bereft<BR/>The dragon-world of all its hundred eyes;<BR/>And seeing it asleep, so fled away,<BR/>Not to pure Ida with its snow-cold skies,<BR/>Nor unto Tempe, where Jove grieved a day;<BR/>But to that second circle of sad Hell,<BR/>Where in the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw<BR/>Of rain and hail-stones, lovers need not tell<BR/>Their sorrows. Pale were the sweet lips I saw,<BR/>Pale were the lips I kissed, and fair the form<BR/>I floated with, about that melancholy storm.<BR/><BR/>John Keatsjohn keatsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9139185550151027390.post-32848356431737366962009-04-01T16:08:00.000-07:002009-04-01T16:08:00.000-07:00Nora,About Augustine, yes, and thankfully not even...Nora,<BR/><BR/>About Augustine, yes, and thankfully not even a Swiss Army Knife.<BR/><BR/>Strange blast from the past with Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians--Augustine and I used to sit around the spinning turntable enjoying ourselves with that one, but it was later than we thought.TCnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9139185550151027390.post-51367576183916267692009-04-01T12:58:00.000-07:002009-04-01T12:58:00.000-07:00Yes, Augustine was just lucky no one had a sword h...Yes, Augustine was just lucky no one had a sword handy during his own Lancelot-and-Guinevere reading days.<BR/><BR/>And for some reason, I now have <A HREF="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqoMvNSMRXs" REL="nofollow">this song</A> in my head.Norahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14439557611640319928noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9139185550151027390.post-81476266676464747042009-04-01T07:31:00.000-07:002009-04-01T07:31:00.000-07:00Nora,Ah, dear Augustine: "Tolle lege, tolle lege.....Nora,<BR/><BR/>Ah, dear Augustine: "Tolle lege, tolle lege..."<BR/> <BR/>What the bell seemed to say to him, at the famous moment of his conversion. He opened his eyes and they fell on Romans 12: 13-14--"The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light..." "...make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof."<BR/><BR/>The "good" Augustine. And yet, just a few entries earlier: <BR/><BR/>"Give me chastity and continence, but just not now."<BR/><BR/>Evidently that's what ageing will do to a person. Perhaps it only takes days, or even minutes. Salvation? Or just old, stodgy and bookish?<BR/><BR/>One gets the feeling that at P. and F.'s age the Good Augustine was probably still working through his Bad Augustine phase. Perhaps then, at least in Augustine's case, conversion was merely a matter of those pesky hormones dying down, or maybe just backing off a bit?<BR/><BR/>Then again, A. recalls Samuel Johnson, 14 July, 1763, as recorded by Boswell: "A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good."<BR/><BR/>So maybe it's just the luck of having a good, wholesome book to hand, when the inclination comes. Yet then again, were I Francesca, I'd probably prefer the tale of Lancelot to Romans, any day.<BR/><BR/>It just goes to show?TCnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9139185550151027390.post-18639189072979756802009-04-01T00:07:00.000-07:002009-04-01T00:07:00.000-07:00This probably says more about me than it does abou...This probably says more about me than it does about Dante, Francesca, or the silent Paolo, but one of the things that sticks with me from that passage is the line, "that day/ We read no more." <BR/><BR/>Maybe it was my guilty conscience, but when I was an undergrad and reading a lot of Dante, that seemed so tied St. Augustine's account of hearing the voice singing, "Take it and read, take it and read" in the moment that finally lead to his salvation. So much hinges on that moment when we take up or neglect our reading.<BR/><BR/>I was five years in to my undergraduate degree, and more prone to being whipped around by my own perpetual hurricane than to sitting quietly with a book, so that particular brand of fire and brimstone was disquieting to say the least.Norahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14439557611640319928noreply@blogger.com