/lit/ - Literature

Let's make an anthology of world poetry.

Post some of your favorite poems, from any age and land. Try to provide English translations for them, but if there's not a proper translation than simply post the original.

I will start with some of my favorites.

In Praise of Self-Deprecation, by Wislawa Szymborska

The buzzard has nothing to fault himself with.
Scruples are alien to the black panther.
Piranhas do not doubt the rightness of their actions.
The rattlesnake approves of himself without reservations.

The self-critical jackal does not exist.
The locust, alligator, trichina, horsefly
live as they live and are glad of it.

The killer whale's heart weighs one hundred kilos
but in other respects it is light.

There is nothing more animal-like
than a clear conscience
on the third planet of the Sun.

Safe in their Alabaster Chambers, by Emily Dickinson

Safe in their Alabaster Chambers -
Untouched by Morning -
and untouched by noon -
Sleep the meek members of the Resurrection,
Rafter of Satin and Roof of Stone -

Grand go the Years,
In the Crescent above them -
Worlds scoop their Arcs -
and Firmaments - row -
Diadems - drop -
And Doges surrender -
Soundless as Dots,
On a Disk of Snow.

Of bronze and blaze, by Emily Dickinson (a poem about the aurora borealis)

Of Bronze — and Blaze —
The North — Tonight —
So adequate — it forms —
So preconcerted with itself —
So distant — to alarms —
An Unconcern so sovereign
To Universe, or me —
Infects my simple spirit
With Taints of Majesty —
Till I take vaster attitudes —
And strut upon my stem —
Disdaining Men, and Oxygen,
For Arrogance of them —

My Splendors, are Menagerie —
But their Competeless Show
Will entertain the Centuries
When I, am long ago,
An Island in dishonored Grass —
Whom none but Beetles — know.

Blazing in Gold and quenching in Purple, by Emily Dickinson

Blazing in Gold and quenching in Purple
Leaping like Leopards to the Sky
Then at the feet of the old Horizon
Laying her spotted Face to die
Stooping as low as the Otter's Window
Touching the Roof and tinting the Barn
Kissing her Bonnet to the Meadow
And the Juggler of Day is gone

Haiku by Kobayashi Issa (he wrote it after a monk told him not to be sad because his young daughter had died, since the world and every single thing in it were just "a drop of dew"):

The world of dew
is the world of dew.
And yet, and yet--

Imagine you are an immortal being, but with the same body and mind of an average human. All you got from immortality is the possibility of watching countless lives begin and end.

Now imagine you could talk to a grieving parent who has lost a child some time ago and can’t deal with this fact. With this in mind, what would you say to the parent to try to comfort him/her?

Any books that present a theory or argument that could help one create the fiction of an immortal mind trying to ease the pain of a mortal who lost a child?

Preferably books that don’t appeal to religious faith.

This is from a verse tragedy. The original is in Portuguese, but I will post the translation first.

Mullah Azzami: I feel like a blind and dried grasshopper
That the turbulent winds of this world drag around,
Hungry for crops that I will never taste.
Inside me there is so much anguish that my bones
Look like blades and with every movement,
With every breath, they cut me and pierce me
For the audacity of wanting to keep on living.
My soul is a desperate shout into the void.
Sometimes I wonder if God is not a friend
Of the poor souls of this world only in their dreams:
Divinity is like a nursing cat
That welcomes the kittens that bite her tits,
But drives away those who gently suck her milk.
The docile ones only have stones and mud to nourish them,
The tyrants, salads of lilies, milk of gold,
All the rainbow of pleasure upon their tables
In this great feast of injustices that is life.

Kala Khan: The justice of Allah will not sleep forever,
And the law shall be applied, be it under the sun,
Be it when the sun is no more than a dissolved dream.

Mulá Azzami: Sinto-me um gafanhoto cego e ressecado
Que os turbulentos ventos deste mundo arrastam,
Faminto por colheitas que jamais provará.
Dentro de mim há tanta angústia que meus ossos
Parecem lâminas e cada movimento,
Cada respiração, me cortam e perfuram
Pela ousadia de querer seguir vivendo.
Minha alma é um grito desesperado no vácuo.
Por vezes me pergunto se Deus não é amigo
Dos pobres deste mundo apenas nos seus sonhos:
A divindade é como uma gata lactante
Que acolhe os filhotinhos que lhe mordem as tetas,
Mas afasta aqueles que mamam gentilmente.
Os dóceis só têm pedras e lodo para nutri-los,
Os tiranos, saladas de lírios, leite de ouro,
Todo o arco-íris do prazer sobre suas mesas
Nesse grande banquete de injustiças da vida.

Kala Khan: A justiça de Alá não dormirá pra sempre,
E a lei será aplicada, seja sob o sol,
Seja quando o sol for só sonho dissolvido.

This is from a verse tragedy. The original is in Portuguese, but I will post the translation first.

Mullah Azzami: I feel like blind and dried grasshopper
That the turbulent winds of this world drag around,
Hungry for crops that he will never taste.
Inside me there is so much anguish that my bones
Are just like blades and with every movement,
With every breath, they cut me and pierce me
For the audacity of wanting to keep on living.
My soul is a desperate shout into the void.
Sometimes I wonder if God is not a friend
Of the poor souls of this world only in their dreams:
Divinity is like a nursing cat
That welcomes the kittens that bite her tits,
But drives away those who gently suck her milk.
The docile ones only have stones and mud to nourish them,
The tyrants, salads of lilies, milk of gold,
All the rainbow of pleasure upon their tables
In this great feast of injustices that is life.

Kala Khan: The justice of Allah will not sleep forever,
And the law shall be applied, be it under the sun,
Be it when the sun is no more than a dissolved dream.

Mulá Azzami: Sinto-me um gafanhoto cego e ressecado
Que os turbulentos ventos deste mundo arrastam,
Faminto por colheitas que jamais provará.
Dentro de mim há tanta angústia que meus ossos
Parecem lâminas e cada movimento,
Cada respiração, me cortam e perfuram
Pela ousadia de querer seguir vivendo.
Minha alma é um grito desesperado no vácuo.
Por vezes me pergunto se Deus não é amigo
Dos pobres deste mundo apenas nos seus sonhos:
A divindade é como uma gata lactante
Que acolhe os filhotinhos que lhe mordem as tetas,
Mas afasta aqueles que mamam gentilmente.
Os dóceis só têm pedras e lodo para nutri-los,
Os tiranos, saladas de lírios, leite de ouro,
Todo o arco-íris do prazer sobre suas mesas
Nesse grande banquete de injustiças da vida.

Kala Khan: A justiça de Alá não dormirá pra sempre,
E a lei será aplicada, seja sob o sol,
Seja quando o sol for só sonho dissolvido.

It was supposed to be a sonnet, but I ended up needing two more verses. So a sonnet + 2 Original is in Portuguese (sorry for bad english in the translation)

The Loneliness of Time

His loneliness is a sea, the others are only bubbles.
He, who has in his breath a cosmic shroud,
Who blinds eagles and suns, dries souls and leaves,
Castrates mating-heats and volcanoes, silences the wind and the canary,

Gnaws the pans and the pyramids, muzzles the waltz
Of the clock and the galaxy, sour wine and veins,
He, Time, is a tyrant of false wickedness
That, without hate or pleasure, unravel our webs.

He loves creation, from the simple to the complex,
However his biography is a book of extinctions
That will ultimately make the cosmos a mirror without a reflection
Since Death rides upon his pulsations.

But when Death at last devours itself
Alone, surrounded by darkness, Time shall sit down
Without even Death withhim to hold his hand:
His is the most sad of all incarnations of solitude.

The original

A Solidão do Tempo

Sua solidão é um mar, as outras são só bolhas.
Ele, que tem no alento um cósmico sudário,
Que cega águias e sóis, resseca almas e folhas,
Castra cios e vulcões, cala vento e canário,

Rói panela e pirâmide, amordaça a valsa
De relógio e galáxia, azeda vinho e veias,
Ele, o Tempo, é um tirano de maldade falsa
Que, sem ódio ou prazer, desmancha nossas teias.

Ele ama a criação, do simples ao complexo,
Porém sua biografia é um livro de extinções
Que enfim fará do cosmo espelho sem reflexo
Já que a Morte cavalga as suas pulsações.

Mas quanto a Morte por fim auto devorar-se
Sozinho, em meio ao breu, o Tempo há de sentar-se
Sem mesmo a morte para segurar-lhe a mão:
É a sua a mais triste encarnação da solidão.

This thread is full of bad readers (with poor comprehension skills) and guys who know stoicism just from hear say.

Criticism in general is:

>Stoics are weak and cowards who do not act and let the world be terrible without daring to stand up to the challange and improve it.

This is false. Stoics believe in doing everything possible so that you become the best possible human being, and when you have the power to act in a way that will improve the world, then you can and should do it.

But what if you can not do anything about it?

In my country new laws were created recently (I will not tell which country and which laws) that violate the rights of the people (especiallythe poorer ones). As a lawyer, I am doing and will continue to do everything possible to combat the errors and depravities of the legislative, seeking to make the judiciary understand the unconstitutionality of the new norms.

But what else can I do? Should I growl, foam, become neurotic, lose sleep? No. I know that a good life is measured by the quality of the moments of consciousness that make it up, and I refuse to let events that I can not control turn my mind into a hell. I will remain calm and happy, even though I can not change everything I would like to change. This does not mean that I do not go to the fight in the only way that I can and with the only weapons I have (in the case in question as a lawyer).

>Stoicism is a simplistic philosophy that anyone understands; it is a childish philosophy, it does not require mental effort

Now, of course, it's an easy-to-understand philosophy. Most of the lessons of sages are intellectually simple to understand, what is complex is practice. Placing stoicism in practice is the big question, and this requires training and effort, perhaps more than the effort required to understand Kant, for example.

>These readers of stoicism and atheists; these numale atheists; atheism; atheists, atheism and atheists............

So now religious belief based on nothing but faith are a characteristic of great minds? Religiosity is a medalof good character?

No one can say that something like a God does not exist (an original cause, the infinite, nature, the whole, or whatever concept one wants to use), yet what can be said with complete certainty is that all human religions are human creations, and their "internal logic" is sustained on nothing but faith. Findings in the fields of biology, physics, astronomy, etc., have already defeated all the sacred texts of the world.

There may be a God, but no human has ever seen it.

What are the best books of literary criticism on Homer?

Books about the Homeric question, about the techniches and style of the Iliad and Odissey, about the story of the time, etc.