Book of Sand

https://tarnmoor.com/2016/09/30/borges-milton-and-the-rose/ Borges, Milton, and the Rose Posted on September 30, 2016 by Tarnmoor “A Rose and Milton” What do these writers have in common: Homer, John Fante, Benito Pérez Galdós, John Milton, and Jose Luis Borges? For at least part of their lives, all were blind. So when Argentinian poet Jorge Luis Borges honors Milton, it is by way of acknowledging a common fate. The name of this poem is “A Rose and Milton”: A Rose and Milton (SP, 199) From the generations of roses That are lost in the depths of time I want one saved from oblivion, One spotless rose, of all things That ever were. Fate permits me The gift of choosing for once That silent flower, the last rose That Milton held before him, Unseen. O vermilion, or yellow Or white rose of a ruined garden, Your past still magically remains Forever shines in these verses, Gold, blood, ivory or shadow As if in his hands, invisible rose. Of ...

DOOMSDAY  It will be when the trumpet sounds, as Saint John the Theologian writes.  It was in 1757, according to Swedenborg's testimony.  It was in Israel (when the she-wolf nailed Christ's flesh to the cross),                                                                                                 [but not only then.  It happens in every pulsation of your blood.  There is not an instant that cannot be the crater of Hell.  There is not an instant that cannot be the water of Paradise.  There is not an instant that is not loaded like a weapon.  In every moment you can be Cain or Siddhartha, the mask or the face.  At every moment Helen of Troy can revea...

SOMEONE DREAMED IT [ ALGUIEN SUEÑA ] What has Time dreamed up to now, which is, like all now, the apex? The sword has dreamed, whose best place is the verse. He has dreamed and wrought the sentence, which can simulate wisdom. He has dreamed of faith, he has dreamed of the atrocious Crusades. He has dreamed of the Greeks who discovered dialogue and doubt. He has dreamed of the annihilation of Carthage by fire and salt. He has dreamed the word, that awkward and rigid symbol. He has dreamed the happiness that we had or that we now dream of having had. He has dreamed the first morning of Ur. He has dreamed the mysterious love of the compass. He has dreamed the bow of the Norwegian and the bow of the Portuguese. He has dreamed the ethics and metaphors of the strangest of men, the one who died one afternoon on a cross. He has dreamed the taste of hemlock on Socrates' tongue. He has dreamed of those two curious brothers, the echo and the mirror. He has dreamed of the book, that mirror tha...

I have been reading The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller lately.  I discovered she has written another novel, CIRCE, at least since that first one.  It is remarkable that for 800 years, the epic of Troy was THE (Western anyway) World Literature, despite not even being written down. It formed the basis of Western Civilization, in large part. It blends history and myth with a foundation tale and set the imprint for heroic action, virtue and morality that governed the Hellenic world for hundreds of years. I have been re-watching Rookie Historian Goo on Netflix. It is amazing to watch court historians portrayed in such a positive light. Should also check out the Sungkyunkwan Scandal show.  Much of the story hinges on the Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty and the Office of Royal Decrees, (Yemun-gwan): During the reign of a king, professional historiographers maintained extensive records on national affairs and the activities of the state. They collected documents ...

  Judgment Against Nineveh … 5 “Behold, I am against you,” declares the LORD of Hosts. “I will lift your skirts over your face. I will show your nakedness to the nations and your shame to the kingdoms. 6 I will pelt you with filth and treat you with contempt; I will make a spectacle of you.* 7 Then all who see you will recoil from you and say, ‘Nineveh is devastated; who will grieve for her?’ Where can I find comforters for you?”… Nahum 3:5-7  ====================== Nahum is a minor prophet recorded in the Tanakh and the Old Testament. Nahum's writings could be taken as prophecy or as history. One account suggests that his writings are a prophecy written in about 615 BC, just before the downfall of Assyria, while another account suggests that he wrote this passage as liturgy just after its downfall in 612 BC. * The only worthwhile takeaway from the otherwise pointless film, Nope (2022), the 6th verse alone was the film's epigraph.

The last three stanzas of What is Lost (Lo perdido) by J.L. Borges: In the minutes of the sand I believe I feel the cosmic time: the history That memory locks up in its mirrors Or that magic Lethe has dissolved. The pillar of smoke and the pillar of fire , Carthage and Rome and their crushing war , Simon Magnus , the seven feet of earth That the Saxon proffered the Norway king, This tireless subtle thread of unnumbered Sand degrades all down to loss. I cannot save myself, a come-by-chance Of time, being matter that is crumbling. [From Dreamtigers , by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Harold Morland] ============================== It strikes me as amazing and wonderful that in the space of just four lines, Borges manages to effortlessly reference the Battle of Stamford Bridge - a victory for King Harald that preceded his defeat at Hastings by only 3 weeks - the span of the Punic Wars with Hannibal and all his elephants, the mysteries of the Old Testament, and the controversi...

 “Apropos of sleep, that sinister adventure of all our nights, we may say that men go to bed daily with an audacity that would be incomprehensible if we did not know that it is the result of ignorance of the danger.” — Charles Baudelaire, Fusées [Rockets], IX. Epigraph of H.P. Lovecraft's Hypnos. ================================================================ I have not yet read much farther than the epigraph, attributed to Baudelaire, but I had to stop and find the citation, which is from Fusees {Rockets}.  I wonder if in collecting Notes Toward a Philosophy of Sleep what sources one might turn to.  Years ago, I posed this question, (or rather it was posed to me) and I failed. Now I feel that I could make an attempt. One might start by seeing what Sir Thomas Browne had to say on the matter, in conjunction with folktales of sleep in Pseudodoxia, or perhaps his essay on the Deipnosophistae of Athnaeus.  Surely, he touched on sleep metaphorically in the Urne Buri...