A New(er) Acquaintance of Thy Mind: Day 14

Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book

The wellspring of thy feeling: hold thou, still,

The best and worst of all thy soul could brook,

And know thy heart as thou dost know thy will.

Soft! lest thy tongue's denial plague thy brain,

And bring to lowly dust its highest worth:

Be yet the greatest honour thou may'st gain

The honour of thy glory in thy birth.

Soft! yet admit the symbol of thy woe;

Relinquish not the hours of thy glee;

Mayhap thou'lt know, as surely thou must know,

The voice of all thy lords of poesy.

If still thy words be bounded by thy care,

Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear.

Happy birthday, Will!

A New(er) Acquaintance of Thy Mind: Day 13

These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,

Are more than truth in beauty lost in truth:

For all the world such madness could not brook

As that which is the summer of thy youth.

Yet as thy days to winter's pole incline,

Uplift thine eyes to autumn's golden blaze;

Let all the glory of the world be thine,

Unnumber'd in the span of all thy days.

Into one moment breathe all thou hast known,

And if in all eternity there be

Another such, thou shalt not find it gone,

But biding for the splendour that was thee.

The sum of joy that all thy nature took

Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book.

A New(er) Acquaintance of Thy Mind: Day 12

To take a new acquaintance of thy mind

I had not thought: art thou that wayward she

To whom with heart and spirit I inclin'd?

Art thou the soul of all my poesy?

I knew thee not when first I spoke thy name:

I scant could know the path I chose to tread

Were all the incense to thy hallow'd fame

Burnt to thy god of errantry instead.

I knew thee not; I know thee, now, too well:

I cannot plumb the fathoms of my grief

In words: there are no words this tale to tell.

There is no physic here to bring relief.

And yet, for thee, and thee alone, I brook

These offices, so oft as thou wilt look.

A New(er) Acquaintance of Thy Mind: Day 11

Those children nursed, deliver'd from thy brain,

Deliver us, as gloriously as thou,

To whom we raise our votive song in vain:

Thou, all the past and future, aid us now!

Thy song, thine art, thy laurel's verdant green,

Are all we seek: let all our will be thine;

Thou god of light and fire, archer keen,

Our all is number'd to thy voice divine.

Let but thy Muse a single moment stay,

And give us tongue to offer in thy praise:

Do thou, bright rider of the gleaming day,

Light on us all thy music in thy rays.

As one to thee entreaties now inclin'd:

To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.

A New(er) Acquaintance of Thy Mind: Day 10

Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find

More hours in the substance of each day,

More graces in each hour to grace inclin'd,

Than all the best and worst of earth-wrought clay.

Speak not for Muses' art: that gift is thine,

And doubly honour'd now, since doubly won;

Surrender not to visions, though divine:

What hearken they whose mortal race is run?

But if for thee, and for thyself alone,

His golden lyric note thou fain would'st hear,

Then hold thy will to all his godlike tone:

Yet own not aught to thee was held more dear.

Seek, then; and if he will it, not in vain,

Those children nursed, deliver'd from thy brain.

A New(er) Acquaintance of Thy Mind: Day 9

And this one brings it up to speed...

Look what thy memory cannot contain:

And if thy silence yet thy choice uphold,

Then be the sum of argument in vain;

Then let thy rhyming be thy fool-wrought gold.

What claimeth part in mortal weal and woe

Who mocketh those who kneel his grace to seek?

If knowing is foreknowing, doth he know

The darkness of the vengeance he must wreak?

The favour of his cruelty is bright,

And dark the sunlit valley of his glee:

Though still his lyre all thy soul delight,

It speaketh of the sorrow that is thee.

The awful glory of his art enshrin'd

Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find.

A New(er) Acquaintance of Thy Mind: Day 8

Time's thievish progress to eternity,

As more than number'd in the sum of days,

More certain is: as immortality

Abound upon those prophet-trodden ways;

In silent chorus let thy virgins sing:

Be all the wealth of all their virtue thine:

Yet all for naught. How should that honour bring

To thee his lyre's music, though divine?

Then make thy choice: not seer's sacred part

Is offer'd thee, nor glory to thy name;

But in the splendour of the Muse's Art,

Thy soul be all, and all that thou mayst claim.

If yet thou speak'st of honour and disdain,

Look what thy memory cannot contain.

A New(er) Acquaintance of Thy Mind: Day 7

Still catching up...

Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know

What days awaken with their fleeting time:

Yet if thou wilst but will it, will it so,

That all thy truth were honour'd in one clime.

What is that truth whose worth thou countest such

That all the past and all the future pale

To this the word thou lovest over-much?

Wouldst thou deny thine all that thou art frail?

If for thy gift thou mournest, wilst thou hold

A mocking future higher than thine all,

And all upon thy word, in wisdom told,

Be this too great a burden? Cities fall.

Yet thou mayst measure in thy prophecy

Time's thievish progress to eternity.

A New(er) Acquaintance of Thy Mind: Day 6

Two days behind... But that's no reason not to catch up now.

Of mouthed graves will give thee memory

A fraction of a fraction of thy days:

Yet if thou wilst endure eternity,

Mayhap thou'lt find Apollo in his blaze.

Speak, Mortal, thou who knowest the divine:

Wert thou above the vengeance of the god,

A brighter fate might evermore be thine;

Speak of the shaded shores that thou hast trod.

Speak, from those shores, of monarchs yet to rise,

Of ships that have not sailed the stormy sea:

A thousand generations ope their eyes

And find a past and future all in thee.

The hours that pass uncounted as they go

Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know.

A New(er) Acquaintance of Thy Mind: Day 5

The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show

I will not see: swift let my senses fail

Ere I the paleness of thy cheek must know

And own it truth that thou art mortal-frail.

Or, if my traitor eyes must look to thine,

And seek thy ravag'd splendour in thy gaze,

Then ere I see the proof of thy decline

Dark come the night upon my earthbound days.

I would not bide where thou art not; and thou,

The sum of glories more than I can name,

Canst never be but as thou bidest now:

Then let my spirit's weakness be my shame.

Mayhap the dawns that I will never see

Of mouthed graves will give thee memory.

Yes, I know, italicizing 'thee' is cheating...

A New(er) Acquaintance of Thy Mind: Day 4

And of this book this learning mayst thou taste:

That, compassed in one moment's heaving life,

Nor love nor honour so the living grac'd

As when the poet sang immortal strife.

To deathless glory swift the legions ride;

Could action spell the measure of their time,

Then endless would their memories abide,

And votive flame displace an idle rhyme.

Yet, what from hour to hour we cannot tell,

Nor own the past can of its past reveal,

That knowledge from those words we must impel:

The smallest part of what our days conceal.

Go, number this, and count, that none mayst know

The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show.

A New(er) Acquaintance of Thy Mind: Day 3

And I'm a bit late with this one.

The vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,

But cannot hold the measure of thy soul;

When word to word eternity declare,

Let this one moment all thy worth extol.

The glory of a thousand burning suns

Though still the Muse can summon, and impart,

The storied path of mortal actions runs

Beyond the splendour of a mortal's Art.

Be thou the first: what can the poet say,

Save that he praise the honour of thy name?

There is no verse compos'd of earthly clay

T' outdo the self-styled worth of all thy fame.

Thine actions speak what minstrels have not trac'd:

And of this book, this learning mayst thou taste.

A New(er) Acquaintance of Thy Mind: Day 2

Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste

Discovers, ere the questing eye can see

Thine unforgiving years upon thee trac'd,

Or mourn the sacred ruin that was thee.

Yet, though the world regret thy fleeting day,

And ponder on its hours, unnumber'd, brief,

I find no sorrows come my heart to weigh,

Nor bow my head beneath their load of grief.

What's fallen, that my sonnet cannot raise?

What lost, that cannot find the world anew?

Eternal odes if writ to speak thy praise,

What pow'r shall keep thee hid from mortal view?

But let me raise to thee this simple air:

The vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear.

A New(er) Acquaintance of Thy Mind: Day 1

And just to make it harder this time, a corona on LXXVII.

Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear:
Wilst thou regret the waning of thy grace?
It is not for thy cheek, though wondrous fair,
Thou art remember’d of the mortal race.
Defended from the workings of the moon,
Relentless in her chase from night to night,
Nor thou nor I can hold thy virgin bloom,
Nor still the sun in his eternal flight.
If in the fading splendour of thy gaze
A spark of all thy knowing linger still,
Then let thy uncontained thoughts upraise
A higher monument to mark thy will.
Thy page will tell the learning thou hast traced,
Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians

Chris Columbus has hit on a good thing, on the whole. I must admit that, although I fully intend to spend the next few hundred words being humorous at his expense. Greek mythology always provides plenty of opportunity for swordfights and screaming monsters and the latest special effects, and by adapting Rick Riordan (1964 - present) instead of Homer (circa 850 B.C.) Columbus is avoiding the classical-scholarly nitpicking that generally follows epic cinema.

One cannot, for instance, find fault with him for giving Athena children of her own. (One can find fault with Riordan for writing that, but that is a different thing altogether.) Those who are likely to quibble about the movie not being true to the book are, in this instance, likely to be too busy quibbling over the book not being true to Ancient Greece to worry about which background character has had his lines taken away to make room for a few more beasties.

That said, there were occasions when a bit of common sense would have helped.

I understand that if one of the main characters in the book is described as the daughter of Athena, there isn't too much you can do about it. But when you mention the Nashville, Tennessee reconstruction of the Parthenon, when you have your three main characters walk into it and see a statue of Athena Parthenos and then have one of them call her 'Mummy'... then you are simply asking to look ridiculous.

You had the whole of the United States to choose from for your unscheduled special effects, and you went out of your way to select a replica of the temple that is named for Athena's virginity? That's too ludicrous even to be ironic.

Then there was the Council of the Gods. It was very nicely put together - and I was not particularly disappointed that Riordan's 'modernized' versions of the Immortals' dress sense had been ignored. I also know that when you're making a children's movie you have to give Hermes more clothes than Classical sculptors did - but wouldn't a tunic have done just as well? Did you have to put him in what looked like a leather breastplate? Why on earth would Immortals need breastplates? Even if there is a strong possibility that they'll be at war with each other soon, I'm guessing that with the kind of weapons they use, mortal armour won't do much good.

Anyway, when you do have a council of the Twelve Olympians in a movie, your first instinct is to try to figure out who is who. So when Zeus and Poseidon are all set to get nasty, and one of the Goddesses gets up and says something along the lines of, "Is war always the answer?" you think it must be either Aphrodite or Hestia.

Then a headcount tells you that it can't be Hestia. Right, Aphrodite, then.

Oh, no, wait. Somebody just called her "Athena".

Athena? Are you serious, Chris Columbus? The whole movie you've gone on about how she's the Goddess of wisdom and warcraft, and when she gets up to talk down two very powerful Gods who are on the brink of causing the end of the world as we know it, the best argument she can come up with is to wonder whether war is always the answer? Really?

In contrast, here is Homer's Athena asking Zeus for mercy for Odysseus:

O Sire! Supreme of deities,

Aegisthus pass'd his fate and had desert

To warrant our infliction; and convert

May all the pains such impious men inflict

On innocent sufferers to revenge as strict,

Their own hearts eating. But that Ithacus,

Thus never meriting, should suffer thus,

I deeply suffer.

It goes on for a while, and I won't quote it all; suffice it to say that the argument is more persuasive than, "Is ruining Odysseus's life always the answer?"

There's only one more thing that I absolutely must comment on. When Percy Jackson encounters Medusa, he deals with her in much the same manner that his namesake did - cutting off her head and wrapping it up just in case it should prove useful.

The classical Perseus immediately found a use for the head by giving it to Athena to put in her shield, thereby earning the favour of a powerful Goddess and ridding himself of an inconvenient piece of baggage. The book suggests that Percy Jackson's mother used it to deal with his vile and malodorous stepfather.

In the movie the head is left in Percy's mother's refrigerator, on which Percy then sticks a warning note. The result, in a house containing a meddlesome and selfish drunkard, is predictable.

Once again, I understand that Hollywood may not like to have good guys deliberately turning anybody other than the designated bad guys to stone. But couldn't he have thought of something better to do with Medusa's head? Give it to Athena to put in her shield again, perhaps? Leave it next to Medusa's body? Burn it? Why would any sane person want that thing in their refrigerator?

And if you're doing that, where do you get off calling Hades a weirdo?

The Greek Verb

The Greek verb (as I am told by the estimable C.A.E. Luschnig) has more than its fair share of everything. After an hour's worth of conjugations and struggling over three voices and some verbs that lack, of all things, the Active Voice, I am inclined to agree.

But it's all worth it, because the Greek verb also leads to more than its fair share of exciting discoveries. (I daresay the same can be said for the Greek noun, but I've not got that far yet.)

Take the word paideuo, for instance. (I'm going to go ahead and do the best I can with transliterating, asking pardon in advance from Euripides.) It means, "I educate," which is all very well; the thing I thought was most important is that it is derived from paidos, or "child". Leaving aside the fact that apparently the ancient Greeks did not believe in adult education, it makes you wonder. Because the Hindi word for "educate" is similar... So you would think there would also be a related Hindi word for "child", but offhand I can't think of one, or at least nothing that is in common use.

Then there's pempo, which is, "I send." The closest English derivative the textbook comes up with is "pomp" (apparently the root Latin/Greek word meant "procession"; you can see the logic). But if you cross half a continent, Telugu gives you a near-identical word that means precisely the same as the Greek.

Admittedly, these are scarcely new discoveries; but it's one thing to read an essay about the proto-Indo-European language (I think I have the term right), and another to see the certainty of its existence revealed word by word. You feel every bit as thrilled as a physicist who has measured the Big Bang, and you have the added advantage of being able to see the origins of language without having to build a Large Hadron Collider and have people accuse you of wanting to poke holes in the fabric of space-time.

Happy New Year.