Post by e***@yahoo.comHi Ed, Grant, and all - My way with words isn't fit to describe how
I appreciate the skill and cunning that has been brought to bear on my
little question, not to mention the intrigue. My devious side tempts
me to prolong the mystery with trickery, but I'm afraid my dullness
would expose me immediately, and I feel more loyalty to the simple
truth in this case which is more profound. However, I don't claim
the innocence of a Saint!
It was actually the machinations of filth such as Karl Rove that lead
me to seek comfort from despair in writings such as Seneca's. When I
first read Seneca about a decade ago I was profoundly appreciative of
the perspective gained from viewing one's life in the context of
broad human history and the simple absolute truths of nature our minds
tend to fool us from seeing. I agree with Seneca's premise that our
reluctance to accept death has far reaching impacts on our psyche and
limits us our ability to see truth and fully and profoundly appreciate
life throughout our lives. Oswald Spengler also has much to say about
the civic perspective gained from this reasoning in The Decline of the
West.
I was commissioned to build a gate, and as the design evolved from the
aesthetic and emotional roots I initially groped for, I saw emerge from
the winter prairie scene I was developing a theme of passing of time,
seasons, and the cycles of life. I recalled my earlier reading of
Seneca and decided I would definitely find a fitting phrase to emboss
the gate frame with.
I purchased the Loeb translation and found it much more difficult to
find a fitting phrase than I expected. I don't know if I originally
read a different translation (from a university library), or my memory
was inaccurate, but the writing was simply not as succinct as I
remembered.
I was actually looking for a phrase about our all being skeletons
marching towards death (which I never found), but came across "Mors
non una venit sed quae rapit ultima mors est" and found it more
fitting. You could say that this inclusion in the design is mostly for
my own satisfaction since it will be written in Latin, quite small, and
in a script font taken from an ancient document. However, I find the
cryptic nature of the design and the ambiguity of the phrase fitting
for a gate, avoiding sloganeering and alluding to the folkloric
tradition of a "secret password" written in an ancient language. I
also think the owner, who is proud of his Italian heritage, will
appreciate its origin and may also have some fun spinning the meaning
to be a threat for those wishing to penetrate his security gate.
As for my original question on splitting the phrase up, I greatly
appreciate the understanding of the Latin you have all helped me with.
I like Ed's suggestion of splitting the phrase into three because it
is more poetic, and am going after Seneca's meaning as Grant
suggests, so I'll see if I can figure out how to make Grant's
format work on the gate.
Thanks so much. I wish I knew Latin so I could engage in more of these
interesting discussions!
Ed
You sound very educated, Ed, and I'll treat you as such.
Are you familiar with modern cosmology's theory of multiverses? Somewhere
out there, in some parallel universe flapping on a membrane amidst myriads
of others, in which there is no absolute time, no absolute reality, and
nowhere for even God to stand and view the whole shebang in a unified
glimpse, stands a version of me talking to Vergil; and not like Dante,
guided through the Inferno in the midway of this our mortal coil; no, not a
dreamy vision in some valley beset by creatures of the mind, but a real
universe of flesh and blood. And I tell Vergil in his own native Latin that
no-one has ever moved me quite as much as his hexameters do from two
thousand years ago.
He often wrote Stoic doctrines, just like Seneca; and one of these was that
time is cyclical, and keeps starting over and over again, like Nietzsche's
eternal recurrence.
Sicelides Musae, paulo maiora canamus.
non omnis arbusta iuvant humilesque myricae;
si canimus silvas, silvae sint consule dignae.
Ultima Cumaei venit iam carminis aetas;
magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo.
(Muses of Sicily, let us sing of things a little higher. Not everyone likes
trees and the lowly tamarisk. If we sing of woods, let them be woods worthy
of a consul. The last age prophesied by the Sibyl of Cumae has now come; the
great series of the centuries starts over again.)
Eclogue IV
Put this on your door. It's far better that Seneca's weary and dreary
attempts to tell us how useless life is.
Ed