Drink and be merry; for what is to to-morrow or what the future? no man knows. Run not, labour not; as thou canst, give, share, consume, be mortal-minded; to be alive and not to be alive are no way at all apart. All life is such, only the turn of the scale, if thou art beforehand, it is thine, and if thou diest, all is another’s, and thou hast nothing.
– trans. by J. W. Mackail (1908)
I made my home amidst this human bustle,
Yet I hear no clamour from the carts and horses.
My friend, you ask me how this can be so?
A distant heart will tend towards like places.
From the eastern hedge, I pluck chrysanthemum flowers,
And idly look towards the southern hills.
The mountain air is beautiful day and night,
The birds fly back to roost with one another.
I know that this must have some deeper meaning,
I try to explain, but cannot find the words.
Come to the edge.
We might fall.
Come to the edge.
It’s too high!
COME TO THE EDGE!
And they came,
And he pushed,
And they flew.
I used to worship the gods grudgingly,
and not often, a wanderer expert
in a crazy wisdom, but now I am forced
to sail back and once again go over
the course I left behind. For Jupiter
who usually parts the clouds with the fire
of his lightning has driven his horses
and his flying chariot across a cloudless sky,
shaking the dull earth and winding rivers,
the Styx and the fearsome halls of hateful Taenarus,
and the Atlantean limits
of the world. God has the power
to exchange high and low, to humble the great,
and bring forward the obscure. With a shrill cry
rapacious Fortune snatches the crown from one head
and delights to lay it on another.
– from Odes Book I, XXXIV (trans. David West)
Life While-You-Wait.
Performance without rehearsal.
Body without alterations.
Head without premeditation.
I know nothing of the role I play.
I only know it’s mine. I can’t exchange it.
I have to guess on the spot
just what this play’s all about.
Ill-prepared for the privilege of living,
I can barely keep up with the pace that the action demands.
I improvise, although I loathe improvisation.
I trip at every step over my own ignorance.
I can’t conceal my hayseed manners.
My instincts are for happy histrionics.
Stage fright makes excuses for me, which humiliate me more.
Extenuating circumstances strike me as cruel.
Words and impulses you can’t take back,
stars you’ll never get counted,
your character like a raincoat you button on the run —
the pitiful results of all this unexpectedness.
If only I could just rehearse one Wednesday in advance,
or repeat a single Thursday that has passed!
But here comes Friday with a script I haven’t seen.
Is it fair, I ask
(my voice a little hoarse,
since I couldn’t even clear my throat offstage).
You’d be wrong to think that it’s just a slapdash quiz
taken in makeshift accommodations. Oh no.
I’m standing on the set and I see how strong it is.
The props are surprisingly precise.
The machine rotating the stage has been around even longer.
The farthest galaxies have been turned on.
Oh no, there’s no question, this must be the premiere.
And whatever I do
will become forever what I’ve done.