In our current state of governmental chaos, I hark back to a surprisingly overlooked statement by President Trump’s White House physician, Dr. Ronny Jackson. After completing his medical assessment of Trump, Jackson stated, and I paraphrase, that Trump was highly unusual in that each day he begins anew, unfettered by memory or attention to consequences […]
He was praying like that and holding on to the altar When the Sibyl started to speak: “Blood relation Of gods, Trojan, son of Anchises, It is easy to descend into Avernus. Death’s dark door stands open day and night. But to retrace your steps and get back to upper air, That is the task, […]
Then as her fit passed away and her raving went quiet, Heroic Aeneas began: “No ordeal, O Sibyl, no new Test can dismay me, for I have foreseen And foresuffered all. But one thing I pray for Especially: since here the gate opens, they say, To the King of the Underworld’s realms, and here In […]
Meanwhile, the Sibyl, Resisting possession, storms through the cavern, In the throes of her struggle with Phoebus Apollo. But the more she froths at the mouth And contorts, the more he controls her, commands her And makes her his creature. Then of their own accord Those hundred vast tunnel-mouths gape and give vent To the […]
The hardy Trojans feel a cold shiver go through them, Their prince from the depths of his heart beseeches The god: “Phoebus, you always had pity for Troy And her troubles, it was you who steadied Paris’ aim and directed the arrow Into Achilles, you who were pilot As I entered sea after sea, skirting […]
The Trojans would have kept standing, fascinated By all on display, except that just then Achates, Who’d been sent on ahead, came back accompanied By the Sibyl, Deiphobe, daughter of Glaucus, priestess Of Diana and Phoebus. Who addressed the prince: “This is no time to be standing staring here. It would be better now to […]
And now they pause on that hill where Dedalus, At the end of his flight, first fluttered to earth: He had risked himself to the sky, away and afloat To the north, through the cold air, unprecedented, Rowing with wings—which he then dedicated To you, Phoebus Apollo, there on the spot Where he landed, and […]
In tears as he speaks, Aeneas loosens out sail And gives the whole fleet its head, so now at last They ride ashore on the waves at Euboean Cumae. There they turn round the ships to face out to sea. Anchors bite deep, craft are held fast, curved Sterns cushion on sand, prows frill the […]
I have foreseen and foresuffered all – Aeneas in Seamus Heaney’s “The Golden Bough” (Virgil’s Aeneid 6, 98-148) from Seeing Things I might have been a wise king setting out Under the Christmas lights – except that It felt like the forewarned journey back Into the heartland of the ordinary. – Philip Larkin in Seamus […]