Ay, but I meant not thee; I meant not her,
Whom all the pines of Ida shook to see
Slide from that quiet heaven of hers […] — from Tennyson’s “Lucretius” (1868)
Is Tennyson describing the descent of the goddess Cybele in the form of a meteorite on Mount Ida in Phrygia? I need to do more research.
Los Poetas
Somos los dueños
De todos los sueños
De la noche o del día.
Reiteramos
Y siempre bordamos
Esta melodía:
El mundo es el suyo,
El sol es el tuyo,
La luna es la mía.
• Clark Ashton Smith at The Eldritch Dark
Poets
We are masters
Of all dreams
Night ones and day ones.
We repeat
And always embroider
this melody:
World is theirs,
Sun is yours,
Moon is mine.
• Translation by: Ramón Cabrales at The Eldritch Dark
From The Ultimate Christmas Cracker (2019), compiled by John Julius Norwich:
Useful Palindromes
What other words would spring to the lips when breaking the news of the death of a prize herd of cattle, smitten with infective epilepsy?
Stiff, O dairyman! In a myriad of fits!
Dr Barnardo making out the menus:
Desserts I desire not, so long no lost one rise distressed.
The rebuke of the high-principled lady to her rich Norman lover:
Diamond light, Odo, doth gild no maid.
Fall-Crumbs’ Fulcrums
Lichen starred
The chevrons
Of a sign
And she drank
The ivy’s
Nectar’d whine.
Said the physick’d world
Of a leaf that twirled
In the web of an autumn spider:
“Dandelion spheres
Are worth all tears
To a girl with the sun inside her.”
Possly the cleverest or funniest knock-knock joke ever created. But you might not get it.
Knock-knock.
Who’s there?
Knock-knock.
Who’s there?
Knock-knock.
Who’s there?
Knock-knock.
Who’s there?
Knock-knock.
Who’s there?
Knock-knock.
Who’s there?
Knock-knock.
Who’s there?
Knock-knock.
Who’s there?
Knock-knock.
Who’s there?
Knock-knock.
Who’s there?
Knock-knock.
Who’s there?
Knock-knock.
Who’s there?
Knock-knock.
Who’s there?
Knock-knock.
Who’s there?
Knock-knock.
Who’s there?
Knock-knock.
Who’s there?
Knock-knock.
Who’s there?
Philip Glass.
• Joke by the photo-realist artist Chuck Close
Five feathers found,
Then pearls of rain
Gliding the face
Of a puddle.
Yet the hornèd snails
Are wiser than we
In the wet-wefted wonder
Whereby the worlds be.
The Ligne Corolle or New Look by Christian Dior in 1947
Day-Star
A window
Across the water
Shards the light
Where a twinful daughter
Shared a middle-earth
Meal with me.
And I bought
That book on
Botany.
But the gull on the shore
Is a mystical door
No more, no more, no more.
The bindweed still
Besongs the hill
With throated eyes
Of clearest white.
And sing it will
Till songless chill
Benight the glamor
Of their light.
• […] γυμνοὶ γὰρ ὄντες τὰ πλεῖστα τοῦ σώματος τῆς ἰλύος καταφρονοῦσιν. Οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐσθῆτος ἴσασι χρῆσιν, ἀλλὰ τὰς μὲν λαπάρας καὶ τοὺς τραχήλους κοσμοῦσι σιδήρῳ, καλλώπισμα τοῦτο καὶ πλούτου σύμβολον νομίζοντες ὥσπερ τὸν χρυσὸν οἱ λοιποὶ βάρβαροι, τὰ δὲ σώματα στίζονται γραφαῖς ποικίλαις καὶ ζῴων παντοδαπῶν εἰκόσιν· ὅθεν οὐδὲ ἀμφιέννυνται, ἵνα μὴ σκέπωσι τοῦ σώματος τὰς γραφάς.
• […] gymnoì gàr óntes tà pleîsta toû sṓmatos tês ilýos kataphronoûsi. Oudè gàr esthêtos ísasi chrêsin, allà tàs mèn lapáras kaì toùs trachḗlous kosmoûsi sidḗrōi, kallṓpisma toûto kaì ploútou sýmbolon nomízontes hṓsper tòn chrysòn hoi loipoì bárbaroi, tà dè sṓmata stízontai graphaîs poikílais kaì zōíōn pantodapôn eikósin; hóthen oudè amphiénnuntai, hína mḕ sképōsi toû sṓmatos tàs graphás.
• Car, étant pour la plupart nus, ils ne font aucun cas de la fange qui recouvre leur corps. Ils ne connaissent d’ailleurs nullement l’usage des vêtements ; mais ils parent leurs flancs et leur cou de fer, tenant cet ornement pour une parure et un signe de richesse, tout comme les autres barbares tiennent l’or pour tel. Quant à leur corps, ils le marquent de dessins variés et de figures représentant toutes sortes d’animaux ; aussi ne se couvrent-ils point, afin de ne pas dérober aux regards les motifs dont leur corps est orné. — Hérodien, Histoire de l’Empire romain 3.14.7, traduction générée par IA.
• “For the most part naked, they make light of the mire that covers their bodies. They know nothing, indeed, of the use of clothing, but adorn their flanks and necks with iron, deeming this an ornament and a token of wealth, as the other barbarians deem gold. They tattoo their bodies with varied designs and all manner of zoological likenesses; hence they go unclad, lest their designs be hidden from sight.” — Herodian, History of the Roman Empire 3.14.7, AI translation
The quickened glass
Of sculpted sea
That two slight mews
Sit rockingly.
