| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken: And peer at me . . . far sea-gulls, in your eyes,
Flash in the sun, go down . . . I hear slow sand,
And shrink to nothing beneath blue brilliant skies . . .
* * * * *
The music ends. The screen grows dark. We hurry
To go our devious secret ways, forgetting
Those many lives . . . We loved, we laughed, we killed,
We danced in fire, we drowned in a whirl of sea-waves.
The flutes are stilled, and a thousand dreams are stilled.
Whose body have I found beside dark waters,
The cold white body, garlanded with sea-weed?
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Arizona Nights by Stewart Edward White: without question how you stand on the ranch."
"Quite good, sir," said Tim very quietly.
"When you were out here before I was glad to have you here as a
sort of guest. Then you were what I've heerd called a gentleman
of leisure. Now you're nothin' but a remittance man. Your
money's nothin' to me, but the principle of the thing is. The
country is plumb pestered with remittance men, doin' nothin', and
I don't aim to run no home for incompetents. I had a son of a
duke drivin' wagon for me; and he couldn't drive nails in a
snowbanks. So don't you herd up with the idea that you can come
on this ranch and loaf."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: the truth about the poem, but the historical truth, into
English. In this process Homer must lose at least half his
charm, his bright and equable speed, the musical current of
that narrative, which, like the river of Egypt, flows from
an indiscoverable source, and mirrors the temples and the
palaces of unforgotten gods and kings. Without this music
of verse, only a half truth about Homer can be told, but
then it is that half of the truth which, at this moment, it
seems most necessary to tell. This is the half of the truth
that the translators who use verse cannot easily tell. They
MUST be adding to Homer, talking with Pope about 'tracing
The Odyssey |
