23 XII 2002 - 23:33 - verba41

I leafed through Vergil's Aeneid today and came up with the following:

'Stat sua cuique dies, breve et inreparabile tempus / omnibus est vitae; sed famam extendere factis, / hoc virtutis opus.' (X. 467-469)

which reads:

'His own day is fixed for each man; the time of life is brief and irretrievable; but to increase one's fame with deeds -- this is the work of courage.'

The translation (mine) is lousy -- I need more practice before I become really facile with this sort of stuff, but the more I put up here, the more embarrassed I get and the more willing I am to work on it. It's sort of sad, really, that I have to resort to such methods to get myself moving, but as long as I can get myself moving, I'm happy.

All that, by way of prelude to another Buzz, courtesy of Alchera, source of many things good. I wrote this one in a notebook about a month ago, in the context of an argument which has sort of subsided since. It also feels incredibly unfinished now, but I figure writing an ending for it after such a hiatus would be sort of cheating by the Buzz's terms. Sorry about the delay (which has obviously only increased my doubts about what I've written).

(I'm afraid, Laurie, that I've nothing to give you and what I would probably wouldn't be useful so soon after a move anyway, so if you'll content yourself with a feeling of goodwill from the west?)

Here we go:

If, improbably, wings were growing out of my back, and I knew how to use my all-wrong muscle system to raise not only myself but also another to the skies, I would (after being sure of clothes that fit and sufficient calorie intake -- let it never be said that I am incapable of being insanely practical at all the wrong times) certainly begin by offering rides to my friends, who would undoubtedly be much more interested in flying than I would (raising the question of why it was to me the wings were given).

But after that was done, I'm not sure there isn't another I would take for entirely different reasons. Certainly I think he'd get as much out of flight as the others would; I doubt only my own motives, whether I'm looking for any sort of attachment to spring from it, whether I can trust myself and my answer to the question of what meaning is in any such attachment.

Strangely this told me much in spite of my wingless state. That I cannot imagine abiding a purely carnal relationship without some sort of even transitory emotional investment is somehow reassuring; that I am wary of finding attachment where there is none is also comforting. It is wise not to overestimate one's gifts, and it is folly to think that because I am held in thrall, the Other is so held by me...

And yet: I can sense other and powerful undercurrents, those parts of me with regard for only the rightness of the twining of two bodies, those parts which also tell me I'm not anything enough (insert: brave, strong, witty, charming) for something ever to take place, not kind or intelligent enough to hold a mate.

This is where life steps in: I think that because I would think of taking him to flight, that because I would consider importuning him in the halls were it not for a sense of propriety and a lack of any of the necessary bravado, I am placed in a difficult position in the recent drama of my friends -- that I feel keenly both sides and although I agree with one I should nto be quick to throw stones at the other which seems after all motivated by this very physical desire (and what a liar I would make of myself if I should say I had never felt that --)

and so it seems an end to the effort of convincing one side or the other of its opponent's truth is proper. Conversion was never the goal, at least for me, and how terrible it would be of me to demand that someone give up a line of thought as I engage in it --

there is a ending in Catullus's poem 'Suffenus iste' that goes something like: 'and we never see the burden upon our own backs' -- a reference to a thought that one's good qualities and one's bad qualities hang upon one in sacks, one before and one behind, the bad of course going to the back. I would like, certainly, not to fall victim to this -- but how difficult it is -- one must learn how to hold one's tongue properly --