Don't be too eager to ask
What the gods have in mind for us,
What will become of you,
What will become of me,
What you can read in the cards,
Or spell out on the Ouija board.
It's better not to know.
Either Jupiter says
This coming winter is not
After all going to be
The last winter you have,
Or else Jupiter says
This winter that's coming soon,
Eating away the cliffs
Along the Tyrrhenian Sea,
Is going to be the final
Winter of all. Be mindful.
Take good care of your household.
The time that we have is short.
Cut short your hopes for longer.
Now as I say these words,
Time has already fled
Backwards away--
Leuconoë--
Hold on to the day.
--Horace, Odes I.11, trans. David Ferry
[Tu ne quaesieris--scire nefas--quem mihi, quem tibi
finem di dederint, Leuconoë, nec Babylonios
temptaris numeros. Ut melius quicquid erit pati,
seu pluris hiemes, seu tribuit Iuppiter ultimam,
quae nunc oppositis debilitat pumicibus mare
Tyrrhenum. Sapias, vina liques, et spatio brevi
spem longam reseces. Dum loquimur, fugerit invida
aetas: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.]
20 comments:
Happy birthday, Flavia! Carpe diem, and carpe noctem, too.
(PS my magic word for verification is "arthead." Feels appropriate, somehow.)
Oh, dear Flavia-flav, happiest of birthdays! And birth-months! And birth-years! A little (and rare) celebratory Plath for you, to temporally balance Horace:
Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.
Huzzahs! Hautboys!
Meh, that "time that we have is short" stuff made sense when life expectancy was probably like thirty eight.
We've got all sorts of time to relax and have a cocktail.
The happiest to you.
happy happy birthday!
Happy Birthday :)
I love the old school 70s stylings of that photo. Happy birthday!
Happy Birthday, cutie on the shag carpet!
Many Happy Returns on your 34th!
Many happy returns, Flavia. And here's hoping that 34 is kinder to you than it was to me. Don't ask. :)
Happiest of birthdays to you! Do something fun - and tell us about it!
Thanks, all! (I especially love the hautboys, RG. Can I keep them?)
And yes: that's some fabulous goldenrod shag carpeting our house was rocking in 1975--and continued to rock through most of the 1990s.
Happiest of celebrations to you. (And that pic is ADORABLE.)
Happy birthday!!
Perhaps it's my imagination, but I can totally see you in that baby.
Keep 'em until Shakespeare asks for 'em back, honey.
Happy birthday, and happy 34!
Happy happy! Knock one back for me!
Happy birthday! Huzzah!
(PS my word verification is "peedone." Hilarious!)
I honestly don't think I realized that the shag carpet was supposed to be uniformly shag until I was into my teens.
I mean, I just grew up accepting that the hallways and such had this flattened carpet, while the corners and narrow areas by the doorways were nice and thick.
At some point, way too late in life, I realized that it was once standing up and soft all over.
(capatcha = pstop?)
-scr
Happy Birthday! Hope you and Nero are celebrating this weekend.
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