From "Ground Zero"

First, no I do not have Swine Flu. Second, dear reader, I am updating the blog since I left it a couple of months off due to school. Now that school's out until the temptative deadline of May the sixth I have some time to think regarding this disease and football.
I have been reading Geoffrey Hill's poetry in the last months and I am still overwhelmed by the power of his verse. I plan to make my undergraduate dissertation on Yeats but several times Heaney and Hill have crossed my mind, even McEwan.







Regarding McEwan everything went "smooth" in our Colloquium. Unfortunately this time I could not record any presentation. I received three critics from very good friends regarding my subject and these proved to be very helpful. I will be reading another presentation on the Sixth Classical Literature Students Colloquium as soon as classes resume. It will be on Yeats's "A thought from Propertius" regarding Bloom's influence theory.


A Thought from Propertius

She might, so noble from head
To great shapely knees,
The long flowing line,
Have walked to the altar
Through the holy images
At Pallas Athene’s side,
Or been fit spoil for a centaur
Drunk with the unmixed wine.


Did I say InFLUence? Yes. Streets were deserted today and to prove that today I passed through the park to see if some of hte lads were plaing: obviously not. Ussually thi place is packed at noon. I think I should keep reading and working on the blog, since wednesday's match approaches. Come on you Gunners!


Ovid in the Third Reich

non peccat, quaecumque potest peccasse negare,
solaque famosam culpa professa facit.
—(Amores, III, xiv)

I love my work and my children. God
Is distant, difficult. Things happen.
Too near the ancient troughs of blood
Innocence is no earthly weapon.

I have learned one thing: not to look down
So much on the damned. They, in their sphere,
Harmonize strangely with the divine
Love. I, in mine, celebrate the love-choir.

Some things are casual and some causal

In the last week I have had a strange run of "casualties." First a story which I rather no to tell due to the level of boringness in my life. The second is the interesting one. Today as I arrived to my Literay Theory class and I bumped into a little piece of paper that had this:


"nunc admirentur quod tam mihi pulchra puella
serviat et tota dicar in urbe potens!
non, si iam Gygae redeant et munera Croesi,
dicat 'de nostro surge, poeta, toro.'
nam mea cum recitat, dicit se odisse beatos:
carmina tam sancte nulla puella colit.
multum in amore fides, multum constantia prodest:
qui dare multa potest, multa et amare potest."


I took it rather funnny due to my ignorance in advanced Latin and kept on with it. But with my curiosity I looked the words down today and it appeared to be one of Sexti Properti Elegies to be more precise XXVIB from the Second book. Here another version:

"Let them admire the fact, now, that so lovely a girl serves me, and that they talk of my power throughout the city! Though Cambyses, and the golden rivers of Croesus, should return, she’ll not say: ‘Poet, depart my bed.’ While she reads to me, she says she hates rich men: no girl cherishes poetry with such reverence. Loyalty is great in love: constancy greatly serves it: he who can give many gifts let him have his many lovers."

Here, the full text.

Now the funny thing is that yesterday I began a paper on Yeats's "A Thought from Propertius" for the Sixth Classic Literature Students Colloquium. I began my research just yesterday and today came upp with several interesting facts. I will not give you any details until it is finished, but it looks rather good right now. The point is to make an analysis based on the paratextual reference on the title and mention the little criticism that has been provided with poems as short as "A Thought...". Now while I was planning it ealier today I thought that I could use a Latin version of Propertius, since mine is actually in Spanish.
Besides I have been reading from the past two weeks De Fato, and strangely enough I do agree with several statements that Cicero argues against destiny.

So was it the Fate that drove this piece of paper to me? I rather think it not since the adivination as Cicero puts it, is one of the elemnets that does not appear in this strange case, and according to Stoic philosophers it should be mandatory.

I will keep you updated with this paper.

I am doing my Service at UNAM's Poetry Journal. Take a look at it and comment, there are a wide array of reviews, news, calendar and so forth.