Soliloquy

Eyes that last I saw in tears

2012-01-22T22:42:00.000-08:00

Eyes that last I saw in tears
Through division
Here in death's dream kingdom
The golden vision reappears
I see the eyes but not the tears
This is my affliction

This is my affliction
Eyes I shall not see again
Eyes of decision
Eyes I shall not see unless
At the door of death's other kingdom
Where, as in this,
The eyes outlast a little while
A little while outlast the tears
And hold us in derision.

Thomas Stearns Eliot

see if they' re safe

2011-09-17T15:37:00.000-07:00

adorabless: sous le soleil exactement

2011-07-22T07:09:00.000-07:00

adorabless: sous le soleil exactement

An Unfamiliar Face

2011-07-22T04:43:00.000-07:00

Every letter is a person's back. They can turn around at any time. An author who believes his own text should be familiar down to the last letter is fooling himself. Whenever a letter turns around, an unfamiliar face is made visible.

Yoko Tawada

certitude

2011-05-23T17:07:00.000-07:00

He could not persuade himself that, if he wrote

round about his subject with facility or treated it

from any standpoint of impression, good would

come of it. On the other hand he was persuaded

that no-one served the generation into which he

had been born so well as he who offered it, whether

in his art or in his life, the gift of certitude.

James Joyce, Stephen Hero

2011-03-30T09:54:00.000-07:00

Jose Carlos Martinat

“…has taken the white veil; and there is a higher horror in this whiteness of her woe. Old as Pizarro, this whiteness keeps her ruins for ever new; admits not the cheerful greenness of complete decay; spreads over her broken ramparts the rigid pallor of an apoplexy that fixes its own distortions. I know that, to the common apprehension, this phenomenon of whiteness is not confessed to be the prime agent in exaggerating the terror of objects otherwise terrible; nor to the unimaginative mind is there aught of terror in those appearances whose awfulness to another mind almost solely consists in this one phenomenon, especially when exhibited under any form at all approaching to muteness or universality.”

Herman Melville. Moby Dick, 1851

as forgotten

2011-03-22T18:45:00.000-07:00

The visual event of the painting happens only starting from this rend that, before us, separates what is represented as remembered from everything that presents itself as forgotten.

Didi-Huberman

Future

2011-03-15T19:30:00.001-07:00

Current runs through the bodies

And then doesn’t.

On again

Off again

Always two things.

Switching.

One thing instantly replaces another.

It was the language

of the Future.

LAURIE ANDERSON

“THE LANGUAGE OF THE FUTURE”

l' Aveugle

2011-03-15T17:53:00.000-07:00

Vowels

2011-03-10T12:47:00.001-08:00

Black A, White E, Red I, Green U, Blue O: vowels.

Someday I’ ll explain your bourgeoning births:

A, a corset,; black, hairy, buzzing with flies

Bumbling like bees around a merciless stench,

And shadowy gulfs,; E, white vapors and tents, proud

Glacial peaks, white kings, shivering Queen Anne’s lace;

I, purples, bloody spittle, lips’ lovely laughter

In anger or drunken contrition;

U, cycles, divine vibrations of viridian seas;

Peace of pastures sown with beasts, wrinkles

Stamped on studious brows as if by alchemy;

O, that last Trumpet, overflowing with strange discord,

Silences bridged by Worlds and Angels:

- O the Omega, the violet beam from His Eyes!

Arthur Rimbaud

2011-02-23T17:10:00.001-08:00

if you say run i ll run with you

2011-02-12T16:59:00.000-08:00

edron

2011-01-19T11:38:00.001-08:00

2011-01-19T11:36:00.001-08:00

black

2010-12-22T07:48:00.001-08:00

In your Head

2010-12-17T13:35:00.001-08:00

au bord

2010-12-05T07:48:00.001-08:00

past

2010-12-05T07:44:00.001-08:00

control

2010-12-03T03:35:00.000-08:00

what if..

2010-11-30T05:59:00.000-08:00

Journey to upper Mongolia

2010-11-30T05:57:00.001-08:00

Je ne marche plus

2010-11-29T05:00:00.000-08:00

/

2010-11-28T04:56:00.001-08:00

once

2010-10-20T11:34:00.001-07:00

smoke

2010-10-20T11:33:00.001-07:00

but what's puzzling you?

2010-08-17T11:57:00.001-07:00

summer

2010-08-16T05:40:00.001-07:00

August

2010-08-01T06:56:00.000-07:00

farewell isle

2010-07-19T16:17:00.001-07:00

Aetna

2010-06-29T08:05:00.000-07:00

To the elements it came from

Everything will return.

Our bodies to earth,

Our blood to water,

Heat to fire,

Breath to air.

Empedocles

.

2010-06-20T09:06:00.001-07:00

the wall behind

2010-06-15T06:41:00.000-07:00

the story

2010-06-08T14:04:00.000-07:00

And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
To tell my story.
The rest is silence.

Hamlet

overlook

2010-05-15T12:08:00.001-07:00

library forest

2010-04-25T08:25:00.000-07:00

And several times, said Austerlitz, birds which had lost their way in the library forest flew into the mirror images of the trees in the reading room, said Austerlitz, I thought at length about the way in which such unforeseen accidents, the fall of a single creature to its death when diverted from its natural path, or the recurrent symptoms of paralysis affecting the electronic data retrieval system, relate to the Cartesian overall plan of the Bibliotheque Nationale, and I came to the conclusion that in any project we design and develop, the size and degree of complexity of the information and control systems inscribe in it are the crucial factors, so that the all-embracing and absolute perfection of the concept can in practice coincide, indeed ultimately must coincide, with its chronic dysfunction and constitutional instability.

W.G Sebald

anti-clockwise

2010-04-16T07:10:00.000-07:00

Rue

2010-04-15T15:18:00.000-07:00

fence

2010-04-13T12:42:00.000-07:00

unravel

2010-04-13T11:02:00.001-07:00

un petit rien

2010-04-13T10:59:00.001-07:00

necessary condition for an image

2010-04-08T08:22:00.000-07:00

by margarita bofiliou

daily grind

2010-04-08T05:55:00.000-07:00

And as they say, the incident is closed/ The daily grind has wrecked the love boat

Mayakovsky 1987

2010-03-19T05:42:00.001-07:00

that prism?

2010-03-04T01:59:00.000-08:00

inside

2010-02-08T17:14:00.000-08:00

the sun is out

but...

out of me, for alas,

when it warms me

and i see it,

its no longer,

inside me

ombre

2010-01-27T15:59:00.001-08:00

Quel enthousiasme d'une ombre pour un fantôme

P. Valery

Glazunoviana

2010-01-27T10:04:00.000-08:00

The man with the red hat
And the polar bear, is he here too?
The window giving on shade,
Is that here too?
And all the little helps,
My initials in the sky,
The hay of an arctic summer night?

The bear
Drops dead in sight of the window.
Lovely tribes have just moved to the north.
In the flickering evening the martins grow denser.
Rivers of wings surround us and vast tribulation.

John Ashbery

melancholic solid

2010-01-19T08:45:00.000-08:00

reflection

2010-01-19T05:57:00.001-08:00

“hold,” in Hamlet’s words, “a mirror up to nature.”

prison

2010-01-12T12:53:00.000-08:00

Stone walls and chains do not make a prison

Houdini

my blue is your blue?

2009-11-23T13:52:00.000-08:00

maybe the grey cloud

2009-11-18T10:50:00.001-08:00

Gni in

2009-10-25T09:23:00.001-07:00

Quotations are useful in periods of ignorance or obscurantist beliefs

Guy Debord

on the Divan

2009-10-10T03:52:00.001-07:00

Fear

2009-10-10T03:51:00.001-07:00

stating the obvious

2009-10-03T09:24:00.001-07:00

theory

2009-10-02T07:13:00.000-07:00

by neglect

2009-10-01T14:27:00.000-07:00

a syllable nearer silence

2009-09-28T07:32:00.001-07:00

Absence of Depth

2009-09-24T16:35:00.000-07:00

walls

2009-09-02T15:38:00.000-07:00

Then to the left he turned. Leaving the walls,

he headed toward the center by a path

that strikes into a vale, whose stench arose,

disgusting us as high up as we were.

Dante- Canto X The Inferno

dance

2009-09-02T15:34:00.001-07:00

but if a living dance upon dead minds

why,it is love;but at the earliest spear

of sun perfectly should disappear

moon's utmost magic,or stones speak or one

name control more incredible splendor than

our merely universe, love's also there:

and being here imprisoned,tortured here

love everywhere exploding maims and blinds

(but surely does not forget,perish, sleep

cannot be photographed,measured;disdains

the trivial labelling of punctual brains...

-Who wields a poem huger than the grave?

from only Whom shall time no refuge keep

though all the weird worlds must be opened?

ee cummings

sacred box

2009-08-31T09:09:00.001-07:00

Dimitris Pikionis Marika Kotopouli Summer Theatre, Heyden Street, Photograph, view of stage 1933 ΑΝΑ_67_15_18
Neohellenic Architecture Archives

in the train

2009-08-30T08:25:00.001-07:00

http://www.the-temenos.org/tt_album2.html

filled with animals

2009-08-30T06:10:00.001-07:00

Margarita Bofiliou, "Mixed Technique"

"The man of the future will be filled with animals"

Rimbaud

ce cours de sable qui glisse

2009-08-30T05:55:00.001-07:00

4th wall

2009-08-29T05:05:00.001-07:00

How are we to inhabit

This space from which the fourth wall is invariably missing,

As in a stage-set or dollhouse, except by staying as we are,

In lost profile, facing the stars, with dozens of as yet

Unrealized projects, and a strict sense

Of time running out, of evening presenting

The tactfully folded-over bill?

-John Ashbery, (1977)

covered with snow

2009-08-24T18:45:00.000-07:00

In A Desert In A Large Bunker Covered With Snow

- Liam Gillick -

Gabriel Tarde suffered from intermittent periods of semi-blindness, an extreme form of myopia that may have severely affected his academic legacy yet may well have led to the most potent theme of a neglected yet important work. This nineteenth-century French sociologist, who worked on the notions of the inventive in relation to the imitative, immediately preceded Henri Bergson as the head of modern philosophy at the Collège de France. Tarde wrote one piece of published fiction. The original French version, Fragment d’histoire future, was written in 1896, eight years before his death, at which point the much more celebrated and referenced Bergson took over his chair. That same year, Fragment d’histoire futurewas translated into English by Cloudsley Brereton, an inspector of schools who also contributed to the Encyclopaedia Britannica and translated Bergson’s essay “Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic,” among many other texts, essays and books.

As was the Anglophone habit at the time, hardly modified by the Hollywood practices of the present, it was deemed necessary to transform Tarde’s original title into something a little more exciting. So Fragment d’histoire future was published as Underground Man in English in 1905, with an introduction by H. G. Wells as both a tribute to a fellow science-fictionist and a selling point for the English version. At the time, Wells had already published his most famous books: The Time Machine(1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896) and The War of the Worlds (1898), among others. His introduction to Underground Man marvels at the light-footed hubris of an academic entering the world of science fiction with a text that both enlightens us about a potential future and plays complex games with the place of the sociologist within intellectual culture. Wells accompanies this with a degree of patronizing respect for a notion of a complex culture that can multiply and erase itself simultaneously in terms of signifiers, potentials and narrative:

He [Tarde] rejects the proposition that ‘society consists in an exchange of services’ with the confidence of a man who has thought it finely out. He gives out clearly what so many of us are beginning dimly perhaps to apprehend, that ‘society consists in the exchange of reflections.’ 1

Underground Man takes catastrophic climate change as its starting point. The sun is dying although we are never told why—it just is—and the resulting drop in temperature drives everyone from European cities towards the Sahara and Middle East. (America is rarely referred to, but we can assume that the entire population of that continent is wiped out.) The timing of the disaster is unfortunate as it is explained that society has reached a certain heightened level, and a particular understanding between people has developed leading to a neo-Hellenic culture of sophistication and seriousness. This development is partly explained through a brief digression on the complexities of war in the future where only the weakest and most stupid people are sent to fight as the government relies primarily on technology, hence saving the “best” people to contribute to society’s progression.

These technological wars result in the unification of the planet under a neo-Hellenic system of both language and philosophy, yet there is an implication that a loss of intuitive people has resulted in an indulgent and self-referential political system. In the years leading up to the climatic disaster, society has gone through a number of dynamic changes in governmental technique. A wonderful new city in Iraq had been built where primacy is rotated between various models of government—from technocratic through bureaucratic to charismatic—including varied experiments in valuing the most creative people over the most practical, and accepting and rejecting a number of relativistic systems in quick succession.

It is at this notional peak of imploded yet heavily tested political democracy, expressed through the occupation of Iraq, that the sun starts to falter. The capital city is gradually abandoned. A wonderful metropolis built of marble on the ruins of Babylon hosts the last days of sophisticated modern political hubris in a complex and self-regarding way. While some doubt the rapidity of the sun’s demise and insist that it is merely waning, before long the rump of humanity is reduced to living in a large concrete bunker surrounded by enormous furnaces in order to stay alive. Food is scarce. While the bunker contains the elegant and educated remnants of society, the group grows weak and loses the will to continue.

It is at this point that the last people on earth are joined by a single individual—a man who has somehow defied the extremes of the surface climate up to this point. He is a throwback: a man who fought wars and punched people in moments of fury. He even carries a scar on his cheek—a mark of past values long denied and covered up by the civilized world. The complexities and contradictions of the culture immediately preceding life in the bunker tended to suppress and critique such behavior and appearance as antisocial while continuing a brutal path in a more “efficient” and veiled way. But these very traits have apparently led to the survival of this single character, despite all the trials and tribulations he—and everyone else—has had to face. His arrival provokes some degree of unease among the survivors, for he has a plan. Standing, he makes a speech—an appeal against looking up and onwards, instead proposing to move down, underground, into a world of half-light and interiors. While he suggests that the present generation will perish without pleasure, their work will provide the basis for a new society.

The bulk of the book from this point on outlines the process of creating an architecture with no exterior: a sequence of tunnels, grottos and caves where the remnants of sophisticated society can build a life based on ideas, aesthetics and thought. Nature will be better preserved through representation alone than anything on the now frozen and petrified surface of the earth. While every spring there are rumblings of dissent that lead some to venture and perish on the frozen surface of the earth in search of direct engagement with “nature,” in general people are persuaded that a life below is preferable to all civilizations that came before them.

Since trees, animals, plants and insects no longer interpose themselves between people, and vulgar desires no longer hinder progress, everyone seems to be born well bred. Everyone is born a sculptor, a musician, a philosopher or a poet and speaks well with the purest accent. Balance is maintained by indescribable politeness, courtesy and charm that is never false and is aimed to please without being obsequious or fawning. It has nothing to do with social hierarchy but social harmony. It has nothing to do with the degenerate air of government or royalty but is connected to a real reflection of feelings. Its refinement is to such an extent that the people who used to live on the surface of the earth cannot even imagine it. It permeates the machinery of our complicated and delicate existence like a fragrant oil. Anti-social behavior and misanthropy cannot resist it. The charm is too profound. 2

At one point in the text, they come across an old stash of video and audio recordings. By this point, the subterranean society is extremely developed, and their art and the architecture of interior spaces has provided them with a heightened, post-simulation of the living planet. When they view the video recordings, their depression spreads as they realize that their visions have superseded and transcended the reality of life on earth:

Luckily an intellectual, looking through a forgotten corner of the archives, found an old collection of recordings and films, which had been put together by an ancient collector. Using tape players and video systems we have been able to hear all the former sounds of nature accompanied by images. Thunder, wind, mountain torrents, the murmurs that accompany dawn, the monotonous cry of the osprey and the long drawn out lament of the nightingale during the multiple whisperings of the night. The resuscitation of another age created immense astonishment, but then disillusion arose among the most passionate advocates of a return to the surface. The earth was nothing like they had believed it to be, despite the work of the most realist artists and writers. It was something infinitely less ravishing and less worthy of regret. The song of the nightingale really caused an unpleasant surprise. We were all angry because it turned out to be so inferior to its reputation. You can be sure that the worst of our concerts is more musical than this so-called symphony of nature.3

Social sciences have the upper hand in the world below. Philosophers, sociologists and anthropologists work on their theories alongside the now diminished status of theoretical physicists, chemists and biologists, who no longer proceed with practical experiments but instead speculate and elucidate theories based on masses of data that were accumulated before the global catastrophe. No longer held back by the pressure to “observe,” the subterranean scientists make a number of key breakthroughs, working theoretically rather than in an applied way:

Recently one of them has discovered a new way of steering airplanes, which is quite ironic under the circumstances. These discoveries are useless yet they are always beautiful and generate new ideas, which although superfluous, remain elegant. They are welcomed by people in an enthusiastic way. And for the inventors they offer something more than glory, which is happiness.4

This loss of political will, combined with a hubristic rush to occupy Iraq, is inextricably linked within the narrative to a reverse acknowledgement of the importance of aesthetic work that is only forced home in the face of global catastrophe. While Tarde cannot be accused of consistent or elegant prose to match the subtlety of some of his sociological observations, his prescience, based on an ironically myopic lucidity, neatly conflates things into a troubling record of a future present that is parallel to our own.

1. H. G. Wells, Introduction to Underground Man by Gabriel Tarde (1904); translated by Cloudsley Brereton (1905).
2. Gabriel Tarde, Underground Man (1904); translated by Cloudsley Brereton (1905).
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.

http://www.artlies.org/index.php?issue=60&s=0

Instant light

2009-08-24T07:50:00.000-07:00

Tarkovsky pollaroids

plus le jour ni l'heure

2009-08-22T14:33:00.001-07:00

sous aucun pretexte

2009-08-11T12:59:00.000-07:00

envelopments

2009-08-05T11:23:00.001-07:00

We are discovering new ways of folding, akin to new envelopments

Gilles D.

absorption

2009-08-03T09:39:00.001-07:00

End of the Day

2009-08-03T09:37:00.001-07:00

existencias

2009-08-02T19:18:00.000-07:00

The body cannot survive without organs and cells,

but the latter two groups can survive without body.

Roger Morton

wrath

2009-08-01T07:42:00.000-07:00

Margarita Bofiliou

The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction . . . William Blake

itinerant practice

2009-07-31T01:34:00.000-07:00

The Hotel

Sophie Calle: Suite Vénitienne

(1980-96):

For months I followed strangers on the street. For the pleasure of following them, not because they particularly interested me. I photographed them without their knowledge, took note of their movements, then finally lost sight of them and forgot them.

At the end of January 1980, on the streets of Paris, I followed a man whom I lost sight of a few minutes later in a crowd. That very evening, quite by chance, he was introduced to me at an opening. During the course of our conversation, he told me he was planning an imminent trip to Venice.

dans la décrépitude

2009-07-31T01:02:00.000-07:00

Vous n' êtes que le premier dans la décrépitude de votre art

Beaudelaire to Manet

1865

stranger

2009-07-31T00:49:00.000-07:00

A dictionary begins when it no longer gives the meaning of words, but their tasks.

Georges Bataille, A Critical Dictionary

craving

2009-07-31T00:43:00.001-07:00

The Craving for simplicity.

People would like to say: " What really matters is only the colors." You say this mostly because you wish it to be the case. If your explanation is complicated, it is disagreeable, especially if you don't have strong feelings about the thing itself.

-Ludwig Wittgenstein

?

2009-05-06T11:51:00.000-07:00

2009-03-29T11:36:00.000-07:00

suture

2009-03-28T07:16:00.000-07:00

„Images are not created to express imaginary unity, but difference.

The ontological difference between image, object and subject becomes the point of departure, the suture.“

valie export

2009-03-10T15:47:00.000-07:00

aux plages de reverie

2009-02-27T06:34:00.000-08:00

2009-02-22T15:06:00.000-08:00

http://www.floatermagazine.com/issue01/Micro-organisations/

pensees

2009-02-13T06:17:00.000-08:00

He lives on the other side of the water.

Pascal

a hell of a tester

2009-02-03T04:52:00.000-08:00

i was the third brother of five,
Doing whatever I had to do to survive.
I'm not saying what I did was alright,
Trying to break out of the ghetto was a day to day fight.

Been down so long, getting up didn't cross my mind,
I knew there was a better way of life that I was just trying to find.
You don't know what you'll do until you're put under pressure,
Across 110th Street is a hell of a tester.

Across 110th Street,
Pimps trying to catch a woman that's weak
Across 110th Street,
Pushers won't let the junkie go free.
Across 110th Street,
Woman trying to catch a trick on the street.
Across 110th Street,
You can find it all in the street.

I got one more thing I'd like to y'all about right now.
Hey brother, there's a better way out.
Snorting that coke, shooting that dope man you're copping out.
Take my advice, it's either live or die.
You've got to be strong, if you want to survive.

The family on the other side of town,
Would catch hell without a ghetto around.
In every city you find the same thing going down,
Harlem is the capital of every ghetto town.

Across 110th Street,
Pimps trying to catch a woman that's weak
Across 110th Street,
Pushers won't let the junkie go free.
Across 110th Street,
A woman trying to catch a trick on the street, ouh baby
Across 110th Street,
You can find it all in the street.
Yes he can, oh

Look around you, just look around you,
Look around you, look around you, uh yeah.

another day

2009-01-28T13:35:00.000-08:00

temenos

2009-01-28T13:28:00.000-08:00

‘The cinema, too, has to be destroyed.’ (Guy Debord)

well, no one told me about her

2009-01-24T04:42:00.000-08:00

Well, no one told me about her
The way she lied
Well, no one told me about her
How many people cried

But it's too late to say you're sorry
How would I know, why should I care?
Please don't bother trying to find her
She's not there

Well, let me tell you 'bout the way she looked
The way she acts and the color of her hair
Her voice was soft and cool, her eyes were clear and bright
But she's not there

Well, no one told me about her
What could I do?
Well, no one told me about her
Though they all knew

But it's too late to say you're sorry
How would I know, why should I care?
Please don't bother trying to find her
She's not there

Well, let me tell you about the way she looked
The way she acts and the color of her hair
Her voice was soft and cool, her eyes were clear and bright
But she's not there

SOLO

But it's too late to say you're sorry
How would I know, why should I care?
Please don't bother trying to find her
She's not there

Well, let me tell you about the way she looked
The way she acts and the color of her hair
Her voice was soft and cool, her eyes were clear and bright
But she's not there

As far as Chō-fū-Sa

2009-01-19T17:37:00.002-08:00

The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter

by Ezra Pound

After Li Po

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead

I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.

You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,

You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.

And we went on living in the village of Chōkan:

Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you.

I never laughed, being bashful.

Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.

Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,

I desired my dust to be mingled with yours

Forever and forever, and forever.

Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed

You went into far Ku-tō-en, by the river of swirling eddies,

And you have been gone five months.

The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.

By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,

Too deep to clear them away!

The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.

The paired butterflies are already yellow with August

Over the grass in the West garden;

They hurt me.

I grow older.

If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,

Please let me know beforehand,

And I will come out to meet you

As far as Chō-fū-Sa.

2009-01-19T12:39:00.000-08:00

Soliloquy Series (Water over Head)
1999/2000, Photo, 51 x 61 cm, Courtesy of the artist

bridge

2009-01-15T12:53:00.000-08:00

“Isn’t that like a bridge, of which only the beginning and the end exists, and which one nonetheless so confidently walks over as though all of it were there?”

Robert Musil

Joseph Kosuth

Alain Leroy

2009-01-13T16:48:00.000-08:00

The sensitivity was in my heart, not my hands.

Don Fabrizio

2009-01-07T08:40:00.000-08:00

We were the Leopards, the Lions,

those who'll take our place will be little jackals, hyenas;

and the whole lot of us, Leopards, jackals, and sheep,

we'll all go on thinking ourselves the salt of the earth.

Don Fabrizio

on the way

2008-12-21T08:28:00.000-08:00

a harbour teeming

2008-12-15T14:07:00.000-08:00

Your hair holds a whole dream of masts and sails; it holds seas whose monsoons waft me toward lovely chimes where space is bluer and more profound, where fruits and leaves and human skin perfume the air.

In the ocean of your hair I see a harbour teeming with melancholic songs, with lusty men of every nation, and ships of every shape, whose elegant and intricate structures stand out against the enormous sky, home of eternal heat.

On the burning hearth of your hair I breathe in the fragrance of tobacco tinged with opium and sugar; in the night of your hair I see the sheen of the tropic's blue infinity; on the shores of your hair I get drunk with the smell of musk and tar and the oil of coconuts.

baudelaire

Phaedo

2008-12-15T10:02:00.000-08:00

The Death of Socrates, from Plato's Phaedo

Then he turned to us, and added with a smile: "I cannot make Crito believe that I am the same Socrates who has been talking and conducting the argument; he fancies that I am the other Socrates whom he will soon see, a dead body--and he asks, How shall he bury me? And though I have spoken many words in the endeavor to show that when I have drunk the poison I shall leave you and go to the joys of the blessed--these words of mine, with which I was comforting you and myself, have had, as I perceive, no effect upon Crito. And therefore I want you to be surety for me to him how, as at the trial he was surety to the judges for me: but let the promise be of another sort; for he was surety for me to the judges that I would remain, and you must be my surety to him that I shall not remain, but go away and depart; and then he will suffer less at my death, and not be grieved when he sees my body being burned or buried. I would not have him sorrow at my hard lot, or say at the burial, Thus we lay out Socrates, or Thus we follow him to the grave or bury him; for false words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. Be of good cheer then, my dear Crito, and say that you are burying my body only, and do with that whatever is usual, and what you think best."

When he had spoken these words, he arose and went into a chamber to bathe; Crito followed him and told us to wait. So we remained behind, talking and thinking of the subject of discourse, and also of the greatness of our sorrow; he was like a father of whom we were being bereaved, and we were about to pass the rest of our lives as orphans. When he had taken the bath his children were brought to him (he had two young sons and an elder one); and the women of his family also came, and he talked to them and gave them a few directions in the presence of Crito; then he dismissed them and returned to us.

Now the hour of sunset was near, for a good deal of time had passed while he was within. When he came out, he sat down with us again after his bath, but not much was said. Soon the jailer, who was the servant of the eleven, entered and stood by him, saying: "To you, Socrates, whom I know to be the noblest and gentlest and best of all who ever came to this place, I will not impute the angry feelings of other men, who rage and swear at me, when, in obedience to the authorities, I bid them drink the poison--indeed, I am sure that you will not be angry with me; for others, as you are aware, and not I, are to blame. And so fare you well, and try to bear lightly what must needs be--you know my errand." Then bursting into tears he turned away and went out.

Socrates looked at him and said: "I return your good wishes, and will do as you bid." Then turning to us, he said, "How charming the man is: since I have been in prison he has always been coming to see me, and at times he would talk to me, and was as good to me as could be, and now see how generously he sorrows on my account. We must do as he says, Crito; and therefore let the cup be brought, if the poison is prepared; if not, let the attendant prepare some."

"Yet," said Crito, "the sun is still upon the hilltops, and I know that many a one has taken the draught late, and after the announcement has been made to him, he has eaten and drunk, and enjoyed the society of his beloved; do not hurry--there is time enough."

Socrates said: "Yes, Crito, and they of whom you speak are right in so acting, for they think that they will be gainers by the delay; But I am right in not following their example, for I do not think that I should gain anything by drinking the poison a little later; I should only be ridiculous in my own eyes for sparing and saving a life which is already forfeit. Please then to do as I say, and not to refuse me."

Crito made a sign to the servant, who was standing by; and he went out, and having been absent for some time, returned with the jailer carrying the cup of poison. Socrates said: "You, my good friend, who are experienced in these matters, shall give me directions how I am to proceed."

The man answered: "you have only to walk about until your legs are heavy, and then to lie down, and the poison will act."

At the same time he handed the cup to Socrates, who in the easiest and gentlest manner, without the least fear or change of color or feature, looking at the man with all his eyes, . . . as his manner was, took the cup and said: "What do you say about making a libation out of this cup to any god? May I, or not?"

The man answered: "We only prepare, Socrates, just so much as we deem enough."

"I understand," he said; "but I may and must ask the gods to prosper my journey from this to the other world--even so--and so be it according to my prayer.

Then raising the cup to his lips, quite readily and cheerfully he drank off the poison. And hitherto most of us had been able to control our sorrow; but now when we saw him drinking, and saw too that he had finished the draught, we could not longer forbear, and in spite of myself my own tears were flowing fast; so that I covered my face and wept, not for him, but at the thought of my own calamity in having to part from such a friend. Nor was I the first; for Crito, when he found himself unable to restrain his tears, had got up, and I followed; and at that moment, Apollodorus, who had been weeping all the time, broke out in a loud and passionate cry which made cowards of us all.

Socrates alone retained his calmness: "What is this strange outcry?" he said. "I sent away the women mainly in order that they might not misbehave in this way, for I have been told that a man should die in peace. Be quiet then, and have patience."

When we heard his words we were ashamed, and refrained our tears; and he walked about until, as he said, his legs began to fail, and then he lay on his back, according to the directions, and the man who gave him the poison now and then looked at his feet and legs; and after a while he pressed his foot hard, and asked him if he could feel; and he said, "No;" and then his leg, and so upwards and upwards, and showed us that he was cold and stiff. And he felt them himself, and said: "When the poison reaches the heart, that will be the end."

He was beginning to grow cold about the groin, when he uncovered his face, for he had covered himself up, and said--they were his last words--he said: "Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; (1) will you remember to pay the debt?

"The debt shall be paid," said Crito; "is there anything else?"

There was no answer to this question; but in a minute or two a movement was heard, and the attendants uncovered him; his eyes were set, and Crito closed his eyes and mouth.

Such was the end . . . of our friend; concerning whom I may truly say, that of all the men of his time whom I have known, he was the wisest and justest and best.

Translated by Banjamin Jowett (1892)

(1) The god of health and medicine.

from the window

2008-12-03T05:04:00.000-08:00