Sunday, May 27

Murderers who plead with imaginary kidnappers to return the family members they themselves have killed

betray subtle smiles.

"Findings"

Saturday, May 12

As it were an after-dinner's sleep, dreaming of both

DUKE
Be absolute for death: either death or life
Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life:
If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing
That none but fools would keep; a breath thou art,
Servile to all the skyey influences
That dost this habitation where thou keep'st
Hourly afflict; merely, thou art death's fool,
For him thou labor'st by thy flight to shun,
And yet run'st toward him still. Thou art not noble,
For all th'accomodations that thou bear'st
Are nursed by baseness. Thou'rt no means valiant,
For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork
Of a poor worm; thy best of rest is sleep,
And that thou oft provok'st, yet grossly fear'st
Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself,
For thou exists on many a thousand grains
That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not,
For what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get,
And what thou hast, forget'st. Thou art not certain,
For thy complexion shifts to strange effects,
After the moon. If thou art rich, thou'rt poor,
For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloads thee. Friend has thou none,
For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire,
The mere effusion of thy proper loins,
Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum
For ending thee no sooner. Thou has nor youth nor age,
But as it were an after-dinner's sleep,
Dreaming of both, for all thy blessed youth
Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms
Of palsied old: and when thou art old and rich,
Thou has neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,
To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this
That bears the name of life? Yet in this life
Lie hid moe thousand deaths; yet death we fear,
That makes these odds all even.

Measure for Measure, III.i.5-41

Friday, May 11

on words

For this creating to take place (as it does from time to time) words have to be accepted as heirs of their forebears, as we are of ours. And in each case, what exists is often only a bankrupt inheritance; or the hinterlands of the unspoken.

In my childhood the word "cancer" could not be said aloud; it was mouthed silently. In my own approach to language, that aspect of fraught mime is as significant to me as are the history and contexts of etymology.

Geoffrey Hill, "A matter of timing"