Patito de Hule

One more, please.


Ev'n in this narrow chink they quickly found
A friendly passage for a trackless sound.
Safely they told their sorrows, and their joys,
In whisper'd murmurs, and a dying noise,
By turns to catch each other's breath they strove,
And suck'd in all the balmy breeze of love.

Ovid Metamorphoses Liber IV


Thisbe by John William Waterhouse

Anna James

Thank you, Patito! Ovid and Waterhouse /2 all-time favorites of mine/, what a delicious combination.


ERINNA (1)
AUTHOR UNKNOWN

Thee, as thou wert just giving birth to a springtide of honeyed songs
and just finding thy swan-voice, Fate, mistress of the threaded
spindle, drove to Acheron across the wide water of the dead; but the
fair labour of thy verses, Erinna, cries that thou art not perished,
but keepest mingled choir with the Maidens of Pieria.

Patito de Hule

Well roared, lion.

or

You, ladies, you, whose gentle hearts do fear
The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor,
May now perchance both quake and tremble here,
When lion rough in wildest rage doth roar.
The Bard

Patito de Hule

Delight in books from evening
Till midnight when the cocks do sing;
Till morning when teh day doth spring;
Till sunset when the bell doth ring.
Delight in books, for books do bring
Poor men most everything.

Francis Daniel Pastorius

Anna James

XIV
RHINTHO
NOSSIS

With a ringing laugh, and a friendly word over me do thou pass by; I
am Rhintho of Syracuse, a small nightingale of the Muses; but from our
tragical mirth we plucked an ivy of our own.

Patito de Hule

Tread softly, O stranger;
For here an old man sleeps among the holy dead,
Lulled in the slumber due to all.

Anna James

Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by
that here, obedient to their law, we lie.
— Simonides's epigram at Thermopylae

Recusant

Some senryu about Go and Go players:


Goban o idasu wa sakujitsu maketa yatsu.

The fellow that lost yesterday
is the one
that gets out the go board.

Teichuu no gogataki nyoubo no me no kataki.

The husband's go partner
is the wife's eyesore.

Shouben ni okite nyoubo wa go o shikari.

Getting out of bed for a pee,
the wife scolds the [all-night] go players.

Shimatta to iedo naishin tokui nari.

He says, "Drat"
but in his heart
he is elated.

Makesou na te o kangaeru on-aite.

He thinks of a move
that might lose to his boss.

Tatta hitoban to uchihajimeta was sakujitsu nari.

It was yesterday
when they began to play
by saying, "Just one game"

Yo fukashi ni tenjou made ga goban nari.

In the depths of the night
even the ceiling
is a go board.

Anna James

LOVE'S SWEETNESS
NOSSIS

Nothing is sweeter than love,
and all delicious things are second to
it; yes, even honey I spit out of my mouth.
Thus saith Nossis; but he
whom the Cyprian loves not,
knows not what roses her flowers are.

Linschoten

The silver swan, who lving had no note,
When death approached, unlocked her silent throat,
Leaning her breast against the reedy shore,
Thus sang her first and last, and sang no more:
'Farewell all joys! Oh death, come close mine eyes;
More geese than swans now live, more fools than wise.'


(Anon. 17th Century)