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David Alexander's Reviews > Idylls
Idylls
by
by
Idyll 1
�"You would win the second prize to Pan�"
�"a woman resplendent in a dress and circlet.
She stands between two men with fine long hair, who compete
In alternating song, but do not touch her heart."
Perennial beauty of woman's prerogative, suitors' assays.
"…everyone knows you cannot
Take your song to Hades, place of oblivion, and save it there."
What a beautiful line! Now is the time for song, now the time for feats of poets, now for the psalmist to praise. Don't leave hymnody in a ghetto, or bend obsequiously to scientism and rationalism's music-less soul. This admonition is a carpe diem, a wise admonition to anyone who would craft song.
If hell is where there is only justice, not mercy, why do we give poetry mere hell, no leisure and grace to callowly learn elegance? Doesn’t praise spring from the kiss of justice and mercy, hesed and mishpat? Prior and perenially, poetry reaches its limits at the approach to the Light that gives light. Now it seems to perish at a doorstep from which the light of screens emanates.
"Love is surely cruel to you, helpless man."
In the grip of eros, referent for a perennial mystery. Wonderous forge of new worlds. Guileless, hapless, callow youths move to majestic plans beyond their reckoning. Mystery's exterminators rationalize a brutal control, a lethal, bombastic political elision that consciences can't catch up with.
"See how Love now drags me off to Hades."
Another perennial cry. You may berate love in your affectation but "what a man desires is unfailing love; better to be a fool than a liar."
"To live is still to hope- it's only the dead who despair." (I. 4)
"What a tiny wound, and what a mighty man it has tamed." (I. 4)
"A pig once challenged Athena, they say." (I. 5)
"…s³ó±ð
Flees if a lover pursues her, and pursues him
If he flees�
In love, you see, Polyphemous, foul often appears as fair." (I. 6)
"The singer who comes from Chios" is used to refer to Homer.
This appears to be a prophecy of COVID-19 written in the late 280s BC by the father of bucolic poetry, Theocritus, especially when one is in a more claustrophobic and militantly reactionary mood:
"He will sing how once the goatherd was shut up alive
In a wide chest, through a king's high-handed arrogance;
In his fragrant cedar chest he was fed by snub-nosed bees,
Who came from the meadows to bring him tender flowers,
Because the Muse had poured sweet nectar over his mouth�"
(Idyll 7, Lines 78-82)
Unfortunately, then the murder hornets arrived. But neither COVID-19, nor tyrants, nor murder wasps shall separate us from the love of Christ, from the Good from which all good comes.
�"You would win the second prize to Pan�"
�"a woman resplendent in a dress and circlet.
She stands between two men with fine long hair, who compete
In alternating song, but do not touch her heart."
Perennial beauty of woman's prerogative, suitors' assays.
"…everyone knows you cannot
Take your song to Hades, place of oblivion, and save it there."
What a beautiful line! Now is the time for song, now the time for feats of poets, now for the psalmist to praise. Don't leave hymnody in a ghetto, or bend obsequiously to scientism and rationalism's music-less soul. This admonition is a carpe diem, a wise admonition to anyone who would craft song.
If hell is where there is only justice, not mercy, why do we give poetry mere hell, no leisure and grace to callowly learn elegance? Doesn’t praise spring from the kiss of justice and mercy, hesed and mishpat? Prior and perenially, poetry reaches its limits at the approach to the Light that gives light. Now it seems to perish at a doorstep from which the light of screens emanates.
"Love is surely cruel to you, helpless man."
In the grip of eros, referent for a perennial mystery. Wonderous forge of new worlds. Guileless, hapless, callow youths move to majestic plans beyond their reckoning. Mystery's exterminators rationalize a brutal control, a lethal, bombastic political elision that consciences can't catch up with.
"See how Love now drags me off to Hades."
Another perennial cry. You may berate love in your affectation but "what a man desires is unfailing love; better to be a fool than a liar."
"To live is still to hope- it's only the dead who despair." (I. 4)
"What a tiny wound, and what a mighty man it has tamed." (I. 4)
"A pig once challenged Athena, they say." (I. 5)
"…s³ó±ð
Flees if a lover pursues her, and pursues him
If he flees�
In love, you see, Polyphemous, foul often appears as fair." (I. 6)
"The singer who comes from Chios" is used to refer to Homer.
This appears to be a prophecy of COVID-19 written in the late 280s BC by the father of bucolic poetry, Theocritus, especially when one is in a more claustrophobic and militantly reactionary mood:
"He will sing how once the goatherd was shut up alive
In a wide chest, through a king's high-handed arrogance;
In his fragrant cedar chest he was fed by snub-nosed bees,
Who came from the meadows to bring him tender flowers,
Because the Muse had poured sweet nectar over his mouth�"
(Idyll 7, Lines 78-82)
Unfortunately, then the murder hornets arrived. But neither COVID-19, nor tyrants, nor murder wasps shall separate us from the love of Christ, from the Good from which all good comes.
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