To Do List

• 24.01 Course Meditation Notes
• Odyssey - Notes
• Metamorphosis
• JR

Meditations - Closing

Dreams are never connected by memory with all the other events of my life, like the things that happen when I am awake. If in waking life somebody suddenly appeared and directly afterwards disappeared, as happens in dreams, and I could not see where he had come from or where he went, I should justifiably decide he was a ghost, or a phantasm formed in my own brain, rather than a real man. But when I distinctly observe where an object comes from, where it is, and when this happens; and when I can connect the perception of it uninterruptedly with the whole of the rest of my life; then I am quite certain that while this is happening to me I am not asleep but awake. And I need not have the least doubt as to the reality of things, if after summoning all my senses, my memory, and my understanding to examine them I have no conflicting information from any of these sources. But since practical needs do not always leave time for such a careful examination, we must admit that in human life errors as regards particular things are always liable to happen; and we must reconise the infirmity of our nature.

Destroyer: Streethawk II

There ought to be a law,
there ought to be a railroad
to take me away, to take me away.
There ought to be a law,
an ocean of escape,
to take me away, to take me away.

There ought to be a law,
there ought to be a railroad
that takes you away, that takes you away.
There ought to be a law,
an order of restraint,
that takes you away, that takes you away.

I heard those symphonies come quick,
now that you are sick of breathing new life into the form.
Hey Streethawk, you've been spotted hanging out outside the storm.
Why don't you fly?

The Odyssey - Notes

This is the secret object of contest between epic and mythos: the self does not make adventure out of obstinate opposition, rather it comes to create is own obstinacy by means of this opposition, a stark unity in a world of multiplicity which negates that unity. Odysseus, like the heroes of all real novels after him, gives himself away in order that he may come to win himself; the distancing form nature which he effects is realized in the abandonment to nature in which every episode he eschews; and, ironically, the relentless force which he commands triumphs-- he comes home a relentless hero, as judge and avenger of the heritage of the forces he escaped.

JR - pg. 9

-- I remember James using that word, now that you say it. It was when Rachmaninoff was visiting, I remember because he'd just had his fingers insured. Hand me those scissors please, Mister Cohen?

JR - pg. 8

-- There's no question of justice, or right and wrong. The law seeks order, Miss Bast. Order!

JR - pg. 4

- I had hoped, said Mister Cohen from the far end of the room, where he appeared to steady himself against the window frame, -- I expected Mrs Angel to be with us here today, he went on in a tone as drained of hope as the gaze he had turned out through evergreen foundation planting just gone sunless with stifling the prospect of roses run riot only to be strangled by the honeysuckle which had long since overwhelmed the grape arbor at the back, where another building was being silently devoured by rhododendron before his eyes.

JR - Opening

-- Money ... ? in a voice that rustled
-- Paper, yes.
-- And we'd never seen it. Paper money.
-- We never saw paper money till we came east.
-- It looked so strange the first time we saw it. Lifeless.
-- You couldn't believe it was worth a thing.
-- Not after Father jingling his change.
-- Those were silver dollars.

J
R

BY

WILLIAM
GADDIS

ELISABETH SIFTON BOOKS
PENGUIN BOOKS

Portions of this book were first published in The Dutton Review,
Antaeus, and Harper's magazine, June 195 issue.
The author wishes to acknowledge assistance given him toward
the completion of his work by the Rockefeller Foundation and
the National Endowment for the Arts.

Printed in the United States of Americaby
Command Web, Secaucus, New Jersey
Set in Caledonia


Except in the United States of America
this book is sold subject to the condition
that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise,
be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated
without the publisher's prior consent in any form of
binding or cover other than that in which it is
published and without a similar condition
including this condition being imposed
on the subsequent purchaser

Meditations - pg. 121

I must begin by observing the great difference between mind and body. Body is of its nature always divisible; mind is wholly indivisible. When I consider the mind -- that is, myself, in so far as I am merely a conscious being -- I can distinguish no parts within myself; I understand myself to be a single and complete thing. Although the whole mind seems to be united to the whole body, yet when a foot or an arm or any other part of the body is cut off I am not aware that any subtraction has been made from the mind. Nor can the faculties of will, feeling, understanding and so on be called its parts; for it is one and the same mind that wills, feels, and understands. On the other hand, I cannot think of any corporeal or extended object without being readily able to divide it in thought and therefore conceiving of it as divisible. This would be enough to show me the total difference between mind and body, even if I did not sufficiently know this already.

Meditations - pg. 116

So either this substance is a body -- is of corporeal nature-- and contains actually whatever is contained representatively in the ideas; or else it is God, or some creature nobler than bodies, and contains the same reality in a higher form. But since God is not deceitful, it is quite obvious that he neither implants the ideas in me by his own direct action, nor yet by means of some creature that contains the representative reality of the ideas not precisely as they represent it, but only in some higher form. For God has given me no faculty at all to discern their origin; on the other hand, he has given me a strong inclination to believe that these ideas proceed from corporeal objects must exist. It may be that not all bodies are such as my senses apprehend them, for this sensory apprehension is in many ways obscure and confused; but at any rate their nature must comprise whatever I clearly and distinctly understand -- that is, whatever, generally considered, falls within the subject-matter of pure mathematics.


NOTES: fundamentally different from Berkeley

Meditations - pg. 115

Now I have a passive power of sensation -- of getting and recognising the ideas of sensible objects. But I could never have the use of it if there were not also in existence an active power, either in myself or in something else, to produce or make the ideas. This power certainly cannot exist in me; for it presupposes no action of my intellect, and the ideas are produced without my co-operation, and often against my will. The only remaining possibility is that it inheres in some substance other than myself.

Meditations - pg. 114

And although sense-perceptions did not depend on my will, it must not be concluded, I though, that they proceed from objects distinct from myself; there might perhaps be some faculty in myself, as yet unknown to me, that produced them.

Meditations - pg. 108

Thus I see plainly that the certainty and truth of all knowledge depends entirely on my awareness of the true God; before knowing him I could have no perfect knowledge of anything. And not it becomes possible for countless things to be clearly known and certain to me; both about God himself and other intellectual beings, and about the whole field of corporeal nature that is the subject-matter of pure mathematics.

Meditations - pg. 104

For there is indeed no necessity for me ever to happen upon any thought of (cogitationem de) God; but whenever I choose to think of (cogitare de) the First and Supreme Being, and as it were bring out the idea of him from the treasury of my mind, I must necessarily ascribe to him all perfections, even if I do not at the moment enumerate them all, or attend to each. This necessity clearly ensures that, when later on I observe that existence is a perfection, I am justified in concluding that the First and Supreme Being exists.

Meditations - pg. 100

This is the chief and greatest perfection of man; so I think today's meditation has been of no small service, since I have been investigating the cause of error and falsehood. And surely no other cause is possible than the one I have explained. For whenever I restrain my will in making decisions, so that its range is confined to what the understanding shows it clearly and distinctly, I just cannot go wrong. For every clear and distinct perception is something; so it cannot come from nothingness, but must have God for its author; God, I say, the supremely Perfect, who it is absurd should be deceitful; therefore, it is indubitably true. Thus today I have learnt, not only what to avoid, so as not to be deceived, but also what to do,so as to attain the truth; I shall certainly attain it if only I take enough notice of all that I perfectly understand, and distinguish from this from everything else, which I apprehend more obscurely and confusedly. For the future I will take good care of this.

Meditations - pg. 99

And I have no right to complain that the part God has wished me to play in the world is not the greatest and most perfect of all.

Meditations - pg. 98

Now when I do not perceive clearly and distinctly enough what the truth is, it is clear that if I abstain from judgment I do right and am not deceived. But if I assert or deny, I am using my free will wrongly; if the side I take is falsehood, then clearly I shall be in error; if I embrace the other side, I shall by chance fall upon the truth, but nevertheless this decision will be blameworthy; for it is obvious by the light of nature that perception by the understanding should always come before the determination of the will. There is inherent in this wrong use of free will the privation in which the nature (forma) of error consists; this privation, I say, is inherent in the actual operation in so far as it proceeds from me; not in the faculty I received from God, nor even in the operation, in so far as it depends on him.

Meditations - pg. 96

Whence then do my errors originate? Surely, just from this: my will extends more widely than my understanding, and yet I do not restrain it within the same bounds, but apply it to what I do not understand. Since it is here indifferent, it easily turns aside from truth and goodness; and so I fall into both error and sin.

Meditations - pg. 95

There may be innumerable things of which I have no idea; but this is not properly to be called a privation, but a merely negative lack, of the ideas. I can bring forward no reason to show that God ought to have given me a greater power of knowledge than he did; however skilled I understand an artisan to be, I do not think he ought to have put into every one of his works all the perfections he is able to put into any.

Meditations - pg. 93

Certainly, so long as I think only of God, and turn my attention wholly to him, I can discern no cause of error or falsehood. But when I turn back to myself, I am aware of my liability to innumerable errors. When I look fora cause of these, I observe that I possess not only a real and positive idea of God, the supremely perfect being, but also what I may call a sort of negative idea of nothingness -- of that which is furthest removed from all perfection. I am a kind of intermediate between God and nothingness, between the Supreme Being, I have nothing in me to deceive me or lead me astray; nevertheless, in so far as I also participate somehow in nothingness, non-being -- that is, in so far as I am not myself the Supreme Being, and am lacking in no end of things -- it is not surprising that I am deceived. Thus I know at any rate that error as such is not a positive reality dependent on God, but merely a deficiency; and in order to go wrong I need no faculty expressly given me by God; I happen to go wrong because the faculty of right judgment that he has given me does not exist in me in an infinite degree.

Meditations - pg. 90

But before examining this more carefully, and at the same time seeking or other truths inferable from this, I wish to stay a little in the contemplation of God; to meditate within myself on his attributes; to behold, wonder at adore the beauty of this immeasurable Light, so far as the eyes of my darkened understanding can bear it. For just as we believe that the supreme happiness of another life consists merely in this contemplation of the Divine Majesty; so even now the same contemplation, though much less perfect, makes us aware that we can get from it the greatest joy of which we are capable in this life.

End of year book cycle

• Ethics Spinoza
• Horce - Satires
  
• Divine Comedy
• Berkeley, Hume review
• Eugene Onegin
  

Meditations - pg. 86

Nor can it be said that this idea of God may be false in relation to its subject-matter, and thus come from nothingness -- as I observed just now about the idea of heat and cold and so on. On the contrary, it is supremely clear and distinct and representatively more real than any other; none is in itself truer, or less open to the suspicion of falsehood. This idea, I say, of being supremely perfect and infinite is true in a special degree; for even if it maybe imagined that, as I said about the idea of cold, the idea does not manifest to me any [positive] reality. Moreover, it is supremely clear and distinct; for all my clear and distinct conceptions (quidquid ... percipio) of any genuine reality that involves some perfection are wholly comprised in it. It is nothing against this that I do not comprehend the infinite, or that there are in God countless things that I not only cannot comprehend, but perhaps cannot in any way reach with my mind (cogitatione); for it belongs to the definition of the infinite that I who am finite cannot comprehend it. It is enough for me to understand and believe just this: whatever I clearly conceive (percipio), and know to involve some perfection, and perhaps countless other things as well that I do not know, must exist in God either as such or in a higher form; so that my idea of God has the highest degree of truth, and is the most clear and distinct, of all my ideas.

To Do List

1. coffee
2. laundry
3. spinoza
4. meditations
5. metamorphoses
6. grocery
   

Meditations - pg. 85

It only remains to be considered whether there is some element in the idea of God that couldnot have originated from myself. By the word 'God' I mean a substance that s infinite, independent, supremely intelligent, supremely powerful, and the Creator of myself and anything else that may exist. The more I consider all these attributes, the less it seems possible for them to have originated from myself. So, by what I said above, it must be inferred that God exists.
I have indeed the idea of a substance just from the fact of being a substance; but I could not on that account have the idea of an infinite substance, for I myself am finite; unless, indeed, that idea proceeded from some substance that was really infinite.

Meditations - pg. 79

The chief problem is about the ideas that I regarded as taken from external objects. What is my motive for thinking them similar to those objects? Nature seems to have taught me. Moreover, I find they do not depend o my will, or upon myself; I often get them even if I do not wish; for instance, I now feel heat willy-nilly, and so think this sensation or idea of heat comes to me from an object other than myself -- from the heat of the fire I am sitting over. And nothing appears more obvious than the judgment that what the object implants in me is its own likeness rather than something else.

Poetry: Doubt

Poetry and doubt require one another, they coexist like the oak and ivy, like dogs and cats. But their relationship is neither harmonious nor symmetrical. Poetry needs doubt far more than doubt needs poetry. Through doubt, poetry purges itself of rhetorical insincerity, senseless chatter, falsehood, youthful loquacity, empty (inauthentic) euphoria. Released from doubt’s stern gaze, poetry -especially in our dark days- might easily degenerate into sentimental ditties, exalted but unthinking song, senseless praise of all the earth’s forms.

-- from the essay collection: A Defense of Ardor

Meditations - pg. 70

What then am I? A conscious being (res cogitans). What is that? A being that doubts, understands, asserts, denies, is willing, is unwilling; further, that has sense and imagination. These are a good many properties -- if only they all belong to me. But how can they fail to? Am I not the very person who is now 'doubting' almost everything; who 'understands' something and 'asserts' this one thing to be true, and 'denies' other things; who 'is willing' to know more, and 'is unwilling' to be deceived; who 'imagines' many things, even involuntarily, and perceives many things comnig as it were from the 'senses'? Even if I am all the while asleep; even if my creator does all he can to deceive me; how can any of these things be less of a fact than my existence? Is any of these something distinct from my conciousness (cogitatione)? Can any of them be called a separate thing from myself? It is so clear that it is I who doubt, understand, will, that I cannot think how to explain it more clearly. Further, it is I who imagine; for even if, as I supposed, no imagined object is real, yet the power of imagination really exists and goes to make up my experience (cogitationes). Finally, it is I who have sensations, or who perceive corporeal objects as it were by the senses. Thus, I am now seeing light, hearing a noise, feeling heat. These objects are unreal, for I am asleep; but at least I seem to see, to hear, to be warmed. This cannot be unreal; and this is what is properly called my sensation; further, sensation, precisely so regarded, is nothing but an act of consciousness (cogitare).

Meditations - pg. 69

For as long as I am experiencing (cogito), maybe if I wholly ceased from experiencing (ab omni cogitatione), I should as once wholly cease to be. For the present I am admitting only what is necessarily true; so 'I am' precisely taken refers only to a conscious being; that is a mind, a soul (animus), an intellect, a reason -- words whose meaning I did not previously know. I am a real being, and really exist; but what sort of being? As I said, a conscious being (cogitans).

Meditations - pg. 67

Am I so bound to a body and its senses that without them I cannot exist? --' But I have convinced myself that nothing in the world exists -- no sky, no earth, no minds, no bodies; so am not I likewise non-existent?' But if I did convince myself of anything, I must have existed. But there is some deceiver, supremely powerful, supremely intelligent, who purposely always deceives me.' If he deceives me, then I again undoubtedly exist; let him deceive me as much as he may, he will never bring it about that, at the time of thinking (quamdiu cogitabo) that I am something, I am in fact nothing. Thus I have now weighed all circumstances enough and more than enough; and must at length conclude that this proposition 'I am', 'I exist', whenever I utter it or conceive it in my mind, is necessarily true.

Meditations - pg. 65

I will suppose, then, not that there is a supremely good God, the source of truth; but that there is an evil spirit, who is supremely powerful and intelligent, and does his utmost to deceive me. I will suppose that sky, air, earth, colours, shapes, sounds and all external objects are mere delusive dreams, by means of which he lays snares for my credulity. I will consider myself as having no hands, no eyes, no flesh, no blood, no senses, but just having a false belief that I have all these things. I will remain firmly fixed in this meditation, and resolutely take care that, so far as in me lies, even if it is not my power to know some truth, I may not assent to falsehood nor let myself be imposed upon by that deceiver, however powerful and intelligent he may be. But this plan is irksome, and sloth brings me back to ordinary life. I am like a prisoner who happens to enjoy an imaginary freedom during sleep, and then begins to suspect he is asleep; he is afraid to wake up, and connives at the agreeable illusion.

Meditations - Opening

FIRST MEDITATION

What can be called in Question?

Some years ago now I observed the multitude of errors that I had accepted as true in my earliest years, and the dubiousness of the whole superstructure I had since then reared on them; and he consequent need of making a clean sweep for once in my life, and beginning again from the very foundations, if I would establish some secure and lasting result in science. But the task appeared enormous, and I put it off till I should reach such a mature age that no increased aptitude for learning anything was likely to follow. Thus I delayed so long that now it would be blameworthy to spend in deliberation what time I have left for action. Today is my chance; I have banished all care from my mind, I have secured myself peace, I have retired by myself; at length I shall be at leisure to make a clean sweep, in all seriousness and with full freedom, of all my opinions.

Meditations - Opening

I

Good sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world; for everyone thinks himself so well supplied with it, that even those who dare hardest to satisfy in every other way do not usualy desire more of it than they already have.

Meditations - pg. 4

It might seem strange that opinions of weight are found in the works of poets rather than philosophers. The reason is that poets wrote through enthusiasm and imagination; there are in us seeds of knowledge, as (of fire) in a flint; philosophers extract them by way of reason, but poets strike them out by imagination, and then they shine more bright.
The sayings of the sages can be reduced to a very few general rules.
There is in things one active power, love, charity, harmony.
The Lord has made three marvels: things out of nothingness; free will; and the Man who is God.

To Do List

• buy potpourri
• new bedcovers
• cloth sprays
• poster adhesives
• lamp
  

Charon

The conductor’s hands were black with money:
Hold on to your ticket, he said, the inspector’s
Mind is black with suspicion, and hold on to
That dissolving map. We moved through London,
We could see the pigeons through the glass but failed
To hear their rumours of wars, we could see
The lost dog barking but never knew
That his bark was as shrill as a cock crowing,
We just jogged on, at each request
Stop there was a crowd of aggressively vacant
Faces, we just jogged on, eternity
Gave itself airs in revolving lights
And then we came to the Thames and all
The bridges were down, the further shore
Was lost in fog, so we asked the conductor
What we should do. He said: Take the ferry
Faute de mieux. We flicked the flashlight
And there was the ferryman just as Virgil
And Dante had seen him. He looked at us coldly
And his eyes were dead and his hands on the oar
Were black with obols and varicose veins
Marbled his calves and he said to us coldly:
If you want to die you will have to pay for it.

Meditations - Private Thoughts

It might seem strange that opinions of weight are found in the works of poets rather than philosophers. The reason is that poets wrote through enthusiasm and imagination; there are in us seeds of knowledge, as <> in a flint; philosophers extract them by way of reason, but poets strike them out by imagination, and then they shine more bright.

The sayings of the sages can be reduced to a very few general rules.

There is in things one active power, love, charity, harmony.The Lord has made three marvels: things out of nothingness; freewill; and the Man who is God.

Meditations - xlii

It is only now, having demonstrated the existence of God, that we finally liberated from uncertainty and doubt. Knowing that God exists and that we are created by Him, we can both explain the presence in our souls of clear and distinct innate ideas, and justify our assurance of their validity: it is God, indeed, who endowed us with them; it is God, therefore, who guarantees their truth, that is, their conformity with the real world created by Him. God's veracity is thus the ultimate foundation of our reasoning, of the right that we have to conclude from the idea to the thing which it represents, to assert, for instance, the real existence of extension and motion, the validity of the mathematical sciences and of the physics based upon them. The reasoned-out confidence that we have in our reason is thus, for Descartes, justified only and alone by the reasoned-out confidence that we have in God. An atheist, denying the existence of God, must, therefore, necessarily be the prey of an absolute scepticism: he cannot have an assurance of anything whatever -- not even of mathematics -- and, for him, to believe his reason would be utterly unreasonable.

Meditations - xl

We have already seen that 'I think' (I am conscious), which implies 'I am', involves 'I think God'; which means that the idea of God is an innate idea, an idea that belongs to our very essense. Moreover, it is a clear and simple idea; it is even the clearest and simplest of our ideas, though, of course, just because of its infinite perfection and richness, it is not a 'distinct' one. Now, the idea of an infinite and infinitely perfect being, where does it come from? From myself? Of course not; it is much too perfect. How could a finite and imperfect mind produce an idea that so much surpasses its power that it cannot even comprehend it distinctly? The mind that produces an idea must be at least at the same level of perfection as the idea that it produces. It is clear, therefore, that no finite being, be it ever so much more perfect than ourselves, can produce this idea. Only an infinite being, that is, God, can produce the idea of God. Only God could have given it to us. Accordingly we can conclude: God is thought of ; therefore God exists.

NOTE: Isn't this similar to Berkeley?

Meditations - pg. xxxvii

The certainty of 'I am', the clearness of 'I think' (I am conscious) resist all the assaults of doubt. No deception can creep into them. The judgment 'I am' is true every time that I make it; it is equally true every time that I make any judgment whatever; every time that I doubt or err. The 'I am' is implied or, more exactly, enveloped in all my judgments, in all my thoughts, in all my acts or states of consciousness. Thought, consciousness, implies and encloses being: 'I am' is an immediate consequence of 'I think' or 'I am conscious'.

Meditations - pg. xxxvi

It is enough for St. Augustine to know this God and his soul. But Descartes is not satisfied; he needs a Physics, a knowledge of the real world in order to be able to act and to direct himself in life, a knowledge that will make man master and possessor of nature and will give him the power to order and freely determine his very existence. And it is in order to put this science, whose 'foundations' he has discovered, on a firm and secure basis that he develops his metaphysics and turns his steps towards God. Here as elsewhere the Cartesian search is the search for the assurance of truth. Here as elsewhere the Cartesian way is the way of insight and freedom.

Meditiations - xxxii

Now it is on the basis of the clear and distinct ideas of our mind that Descartes has banished from the real world -- the world as it is in itself, independently of ourselves and of our reason -- all sensible quality, all 'form', and all 'force', in short everything that is not mechanical, and has declared them 'mere appearance'. He has thus destroyed the well ordered, rich and colourful Cosmos of ancient and medieval science, substituting for it a new image or conception of the Universe, mere extension and motion, an image more strange and much more incredible than all the fables ever imagined by the philosophers. Has he really the right to do so?

Meditations - pg. xxix

The seeds of knowledge are in us: that is the deep reason why the Cartesian endeavour is not a chimera, the reason why we can, and must, attempt to discumber our reason of all the contents that it may have received from outside in the course of our life. These 'seeds of knowledge' or, as Descartes will call them later, thus rediscovering the deep intuition of Plato, 'innate ideas', 'eternal truths', 'true and immutable natures', purely intellectual essences that are utterly independent of the contents given to us by sense-perceptions, concepts that the rigorous catharsis of radical, methodical doubt reveals in our soul: these are the firm and sure foundations -- which Montaigne was not able to discover -- upon which we can base our judgment.

Meditations - pg. xxvii

The application of identical methods implies or means identical acts of the mind; which in turn reveals to us that it is not the objects -- numbers, lines -- that matter, but objects together, compare them to each other, measure them by each other, and thus establish between them a serial order; an order of dynamic production (and not of classification, like the static order of genera and species in scholastic logic) in which each successive term depends on the preceding one and determines that which follows. Now is this is true, if it is the operational order that matters, the order which the algebraical formula discloses and presents to us in its intellectual unity, and not the objects that embody and exemplify it, then it is obvious that by means of these formulae every spatial relation can be transposed into a numerical one, and vice verse; or at a deeper level, that every algebraic formula can be translated into the language of numbers and of lines. And it is obvious, too, that it is this science of order which supplies the foundation of rational knowledge, and this because it is reason in being, because in it our mind studies only its own acts, its own operations, its own diaphanous relations to itself.

Medititations - pg. xxiii

Freedom, mastery -- I should like to stress the importance of these concepts in the philosophy of Descartes. The fact of freedom is at the very basis of Cartesian thinking. Philosophy indeed is an exercise in freedom: and freedom alone makes it possible. It is only by a free act to our mind that we can decide to doubt, 'to suspend judgment', to 'withdraw the acceptance' of all the ideas that customarily present themselves to us. Our decision to review all our ideas in the light of a searching criticism was indeed a free decision; therefore our decision to say no to ourselves and to our own nature was similarly a free decision, as was also our decision to set ourselves -- and our reasoning faculty -- the task of re-ordering all our mental activities on a new plan.

Meditations - pg. xiv

It is obvious that Descartes considers Montaigne perfectly justified in his destructive criticism of the false scholastic rationalism and of all the 'superstitions', 'preconceptions', and 'prejudices' that clutter up the mind and obscure its natural light. The fault of Montaigne, in Descartes's opinion, is not, however, that he is too radical; on the contrary, it is that he is not radical enough. The only way to deal with Montaigne is to go beyond him. It is because Montaigne was too timid that he could not find the way out of the labyrinth; and it was because of Descartes's own fearless decision not to stop; not to yield, but to pursue his way to the end, that he succeeded in breaking through into the realm of pure mind -- a realm which Montaigne could not reach; and thus, whereas Montaigne stopped at the finitude of the human soul, Decartes discovered the fullness of spiritual freedom, the certainty of intellectual truth, the reality of infinite God.

The Odyssey - Closing

Then bright-eyed Athene spoke out to Odysseus:

"Zeus-born son of Laertes, Odyssey of many wiles,

Hold off and cease from the strife of impartial war,

Lest Zeus, the broad-seeing son of Cronos, in some way get angry."

So Athene said. He obeyed, and rejoiced in his heart.

Then Pallas Athene, daughter of aegis-bearing Zeus,

Established oaths for the future between both sides,

Likening herself to Mentor in form and in voice.

The Odyssey - pg. 238

Odyssey of many wiles glared at them and spoke:

"Dogs, you thought I would no longer come home in return

From the land of the Trojans; and so you wore my house awar

And slept alongside my serving women by force

And underhandedly courted my wife while I was myself alive,

And you did not fear the gods who possess broad heaven,

Or that there would be any vengeance of men in time to come.

Now the bonds of destruction are fastened on you all."

So he said, and sallow fear got a grip on all of them.

The Odyssey - pg. 221

The troubles of his heart, his wife, who had a sense of devotion,

Woke up and wept while sitting up in her soft bed.

And when she was sated in her own heart with weeping,

The divine women prayed to Artemis first of all:

"Artemis, queenly goddess, daughter of Zeus, would that now

You might strike my chest with an arrow and take my life away

At this very time, or that a storm would now snatch me up

And depart carrying me forth upon the murky ways,

And throw me in the streams of backward-flowing Oceanos;

The Odyssey - pg. 172

Then Zeus-born Odysseus answered him with a speech:

"Eumaeos, you have stirred the heart very much in my breast

As you tell the details of the pain you suffered in your heart.

But Zeus has provided good for along with evil

When, having suffered much, you reached the home of a man

Who was mild, and who furnished you with food and drink

Kindly. And you live a good life. But as for me,

I reach here after wandering to many cities of men."

The Odyssey - pg. 158

But I think is not in order, nor will you convince me

When you speak about Odysseus. Why does a man like you need

To lie fruitlessly? Well do I myself also know

Of my master's return, that he has been very much hated

By all the gods, as they did not subdue him among the Trojans

Or in the arms of his friends, after he had wound up the war.

Then all the Achaians would have made him a funeral mound,

And he would have won great glory for his son, too, hereafter.

As it is, the storm winds have snatched him off without glory.

But I myself live apart among the swine. Nor do I

Go to the city unless prudent Penelope happens

To urge me to come when a message comes from somewhere,

But then the men sit there and ask for the details,

Both those who grieve for the master who is gone so long

And those who enjoy devouring a livelihood scot free.

The Odyssey - pg. 126

The sort of disgraceful deed which that woman plotted,

Devising murder for her wedded husband. I thought

Indeed that I would come home welcome to my children

And my servants. But she, with utter evil on her mind,

Poured shame upon herself and upon womenkind to come

Hereafter, even on one who might do good deeds.'

So he said, and then I addressed him in answer:

'Alas, broad-seeing Zeus has terribly hated

The descent of Atreus from the outset because of the plans

Of women. Many men perished because of Helen;

Clytemenstra made a plot against you while you were far away,

So I said, and he at once addressed me in answer:

'So never be mild yourself, henceforth, even to your wife.

Reveal to her no entire story that you know well,

But tell a part of it and the rest be concealed.

The Odyssey - pg. 66

They gave a long shout. And godly Odysseus woke up.

He sat there and deliberated in his mind and heart:
"Ah me, to what land of mortals have I come this time?

Are these men proud and savage and without justice,

Or are they friendly to stranders and have a fod-fearing mind?

How the sound of girls' voices has sussounded me,

Of nymphs, who hold the lofty peaks of mountains,

And the sources of rivers and the grassy meadows!

Or am I somewhere near men who are of clear speech?

Well, come, I shall make a trial myself and see."

The Odyssey - pg. 62

But when as he swam on he came up to the mouth

Of a fair-flowing river, there the best place seemed to him to be.

It was bare of rocks, and it had a shelter from the wind.

He perceived it flowing and prayed to it in his heart.

"Hear me Lord,, whoever you are; I approach you with many

Prayers, fleeing the rebukes of Poseidon out of the ocean.

A man should be respected even by the immortal gods

When anyone approaches, wandering, as now I,

Who have suffered much, approach your knees and your flowing.

Have pity, Lord. I declare I am a suppliant to you."

So he said. At once the river stopped flowing and held the wave.

It made a calm in front of him and rescued him

At the issue of the river. The he bent both his knees

And his stout hands. For his own heart was drowned by salt water.

Metamorphoses - Opening

PROLOGUE

Changes of shape, new forms, are the theme which my spirit impels me

now to recite. Inspire me, O gods (it is you who have even transformed my art), and spin me a thread from the world's beginning

down to my own lifetime, in one continuous poem.

THE CREATION

Before the earth and the sea and the all-encomapssing heaven

came into being, the whole of nature displayed but a single

face, which men have called Chaos: a cruse, unstructured mass,

no matter composed of disparate, incompatible elements.

No Titan the sun god was present to cast his rays on the universe,

nor Phoebe the moon to replenish her horns and grow to her fullness;

no earth suspended in equilibrium, wrapped in its folding

mantle of air; no Amphitrite, the goddess of ocean,

to stretch her sinuous arms all round the earth's long coastline.

PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

First published 2004

Text copyright David Raeburn, 2004

Introduction copyright Denis Feeney, 2004

All rights reserved

The moral right of the translator has been asserted

Set in 10.25/12.25 pt PostScript Adobe Sabon

Typeset by Rowland Phototypesetting Ltd, Bury St Edmonds, Suffolk

Printed in England by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject

to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,

re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this

condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

OVID
Metapmorphoses

A New Verse Translation

Translated by DAVID RAEBURN

with an Introduction by DENIS FEENEY

PENGUIN BOOKS

Wolf Hall - Closing

Before 'Bromham', he makes a dot in the margin, and draws a long arrow across the page. 'Now here, before we go to Winchester, we have time to spare, and what I think is, Rafe, we shall visit the Seymours.'

He writes it down.

Early September. Five days. Wolf Hall.

Wolf Hall - pg. 645

But there was nothing new in it: not new anyway to him. I follow my conscience, More said, you must follow yours. My conscience satisfies me -- and now I will speech plainly -- that your statute is faulty (and Norfolk roars at him) and that your authority baseless (Norfolk roars again: "Now we see your malice plain'). Parnell had laughed, and the jury exchanged glances, nodding to each other; and while the whole of Westminster Hall murmured, More proffered again, speaking against the noise, his treasonable method of counting. My conscience hold with the majority, which makes me know it does not speak false. 'Against Henry's kingdom, I have all the kingdoms of Christendom. Against each one of your bishops, I have a hundred saints. Against your one parliament, I have all the general councils of the church, stretching back for a thousand years.'

Wolf Hall - pg. 644

It was fear of plain words, or the assertion that plain words pervert themselves; More's dictionary, against our dictionary. You can have a silence full of words. A lute retains, in its bowl, the notes it has played. The viol, in its strings, holds a concord. A shrivelled petal can hold its scent, a prayer can rattle with curses; an empty house, when the owners have gone out, can still be loud with ghosts.

Wolf Hall - pg. 637

On the day of the trial, rivers breach their banks; the Thames itself rises, bubbling like some river in Hell, and washes its flotsam over the quays.

Wolf Hall - pg. 635

'Oh yes, I am very much afraid, I am not a bold and robust man such as yourself, I cannot help but rehearse it in my mind. But I will only feel it for a moment, and God will not let me remember it afterwards.'

'I am glad I am not like you.'

'Undoubtedly. Or you would be sitting here.'

'I mean, my mind fixed on the next world. I realise you see no prospect of improving this one.'

'And you do?'

Wolf Hall - pg. 628

'When you interrogated men you called heretics, you did not allow evasion. You compelled them to speak and racked if they would not. If they were made to answer, why not you?'

'The cases are not the same. When I compel an answer from a heretic, I have the whole body of law behind me, the whole might of Christendom. What I am threatened with here is one particular law, one singular dispensation of recent make, recognised here but in no other country -'

Wolf Hall - pg. 522

Indeed. The cardinal expected the gratitude of his prince, in which matter he was bound to be disappointed. For all his capacities he was a man whose emotions would master him and wear him out. He, Cromwell, is no longer subject to vagaries of temperament, and he is almost never tired. Obstacles will be removed, tempers will be soothed, knots unknotted. Here at the close of the year 1533, his spirit is sturdy, his will strong, his front imperturbable. The courtiers see that he can shape events, mould them. He can contain the fears of other men, and give them a sense of solidity in a quaking world: this people, this dynasty, this miserable rainy island at the edge of the world.

Destroyer: Farar, Straus and Grioux (Sea of Tears)

It was back amongst the living,
your smile was giving me a thrill.
Enough to come so close to closing the deal (the steal of a century...)
A century stolen from our hearts to a house on the hill.

But if that is what it takes,
if that is what it takes,
if that is what it takes
to be a stone, a stone's throw from your throne,
no man has ever hung from the rafters of a second home.
No man has ever hung from the rafters of a second home.

It's true,
I needed you more back when I was poor:
the wealthy dowager (the patroness), she guessed it
the answer wasn't "yes."
But her maxims were fine, the ethos that flew about her mind
like swallows in search of a
burned-down bell tower church.

But if that is what it takes,
if that is what it takes,
if that is what it takes
to be a stone, a stone's throw from your throne,
no man has ever hung at the temporary age of 24, both feet on the floor,
listening to the bonafide stasis of sound,
the eaves dripping yesterday's
ill-timed August rain,

if there is such a thing as ill-timed August rain...

The Odyssey - Opening

I

Tell me, Muse, about the man of many turns, who many

Way wandered when he had sacked Troy's holy citadel;

On the ocean he suffered many pain within his heart,

Striving for his life and his companion's return.

But he did not save his companions, though he wanted to:

They lost their own loves because of their recklessness.

The fools, they devoured the cattle of Hyperion,

The Sun, and he took away the day of their return.

Begin the tale somewhere for us also, goddess, daughter of Zeus.

A NORTON CRITICAL EDITION
Homer

THE ODYSSEY

A VERSE TRANSLATION
BACKGROUNDS
CRITICISM

SECOND EDITION

Translated and Edited by

ALBERT COOK

BROWN UNIVERSITY

W .W. NORTON & COMPANY . New York . London

Copyright 1993, 1974, 1967 by Albert Cook

All rights reserved

The text of this book is composed in Electra, with display in Bernhard. Composition and manufacturing by the Maple-Vail Book Group.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Homer.

W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110

www.wwnorton.com

W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT

Wolf Hall - pg. 516

But in the same streets Chapuys sees the stirrings of sedition, a city ready to open its gates to the Emperor. He was not at the sack of Rome but there are nights when he dreams of it as if he had been there: the black guts spilled on antique pavements, the half-dead draped in the fountains, the chiming of bells through the marsh fog, and the flames of arsonists' torches leaping along the walls. Rome has fallen and everything within it; it was not invaders but Pope Julius himself who knocked down old St Peter's, which had stood for twelve hundred years, the site where the Emperor Constantine himself had dug the first trench, twelve scoops of soil, one for each of the apostles; where the Christian martyrs, sewn into the skins of wild beasts, had been torn apart by dogs. Twenty-five feet he dug down to lay his new foundations, through a necropolis, through twelve centuries of fishbones and ash, his workmen's shovels powdering the skulls of saints. In the place where martyrs had bled, ghost-white boulders stood: marble, waiting for Michelangelo.

Wolf Hall - pg. 515

He watches him melt into the crowd of home-going aldermen. He thinks, More is too proud to retreat from his position. He is afraid to lose his credibility with the scholars in Europe. We must find some way for him to do it, that doesn't depend on abjection. The sky has cleared now, to a flawless lapis blue. The London gardens are bright with berries. There is an obdurate winter ahead. But he feels a force ready to break, as spring breaks from the dead tree.

Wolf Hall - pg. 480

The king has two bodies. The first exists within the limits of his physical being; you can measure it, and often Henry does, his waist, his calf, his other parts. The second is his princely double, free-floating, untethered, weightless, which may be in more than one place at a time. Henry may be hunting in the forest, while his princely double makes laws. One fights, one prays for peace. One is wreathed in the mystery of his kingship: one is eating a duckling with sweet green peas.

Wolf Hall - pg. 362

At Greenwich, a friar called William Peto, the head in England of his branch of the Franciscan order, preaches a sermon before the king, in which he takes his text and example the unfortunate Ahab, seventh king of Israel, who lived in a palace of ivory. Under the influence of the wicked Jezebel he built a pagan temple and gave the priests of Baal places in his retinue. The prophet Elijah told Ahab that the dogs would lick his blood, and so it came to pass, as you would imagine, since only the successful prophets are remembered. The dogs of Samaria licked Ahab's blood. All his male heirs perished. They lay unburied in the streets. Jezebel was thrown out of a window of her palace. Wild dogs tore her body into shreds.

Wolf Hall - pg. 359

Sometimes, when Chapuys has finished digging up Walter's bones and making his own life unfamiliar to him, he feels almost impelled to speak in defence of his father, his childhood. But it is no use to justify yourself. It is no good to explain. It is weak to be anecdotal. It is wise to conceal the past even if there is nothing to conceal. A man's power is in the half-light, in the half-seen movements of his hand and the unguessed-at expression of his face. It is the absence of facts that frightens people: the gap you open, into which they pour their fears, fantasies, desires.

Wolf Hall - pg. 338

II

'Alas, What Shall I Do For Love?'

Spring 1532

Time now to consider the compacts that hold the world together the compact between ruler and ruled, and that between husband and wife. Both these arrangements rest on a sedulous devotion, the one to the interests of the other. The master and husband protect and provide; the wife and servant obey. Above masters, above husbands, God rules all. He counts up our petty rebellions, our human follies. He reaches out his long arm, hand bunched into a fist.

Wolf Hall - pg. 329

'Majesty, the Council of Constance granted your ancestor, Henry V, such control over the church in England as no other Christian king exercised in his realm.'

Wolf Hall - pg. 311

Why are we so attached to the severities of the past? Why are we so proud of ourselves for having endured our fathers and hour mothers, the fireless days and the meatless days, the cold winters and the sharp tongues? It's not as if we had a choice. Even Liz, once when they were young, when she'd seen him early in the morning putting Gregory's shirt to warm before the fire, even Liz had said sharply, don't do that, he'll expect it every day.

Wolf Hall - pg. 305

Cranmer said to him, when they were talking late one night, St Augustine says we need not ask where our home is, because in the end we all come home to God.

Wolf Hall - pg. 293

He halts. He takes his son's arm, turns him to look into his face. 'Retrace our steps through his conversation.' Gregory pulls away. 'No, listen, Gregory. I said, you give way to the king's requests. You open the way to his desires. That is what a courtier does. Now, understand this: it is impossible that Henry should require me or any other person to harm the queen. What is he, a monster? Even now he has affection for her; how could he not? And he has a soul he hopes may be saved. He confesses every to one or other of his chaplains. Do you think the Emperor does so much, or King Francis? Henry's heart, I assure you, is a heart full of feeling; and Henry's soul, I swear, is the most scrutinised soul in Christendom.'

Wolf Hall - pg. 278

'Indeed. You are a man of vigorous invention. Still ... for the gospel, you know ...'

'For the gospel, I count it a good night's work.'

'But I wonder,' Cranmer says, almost to himself. 'I wonder what you think the gospel is. Do you think it is a book of blanksheets on which Thomas Cromwell imprints his desires?'

He stops. He puts a hand on his arm and says, 'Dr Cranmer, look at me. Believe me. I am sincere. I cannot help it if God has given me a sinner's aspect. He must mean something by it.'

Wolf Hall - pg. 191

'No,' he says, 'sit down. Let's have this straight. Thomas More here will tell you, I would have been a simple monk, but my father put me to the law. I would spend my life in church, if I had the choice. I am, as you know, indifferent to wealth. I am devoted to things of the spirit. The world's esteem is nothing to me.' He looks around the table. 'So how did he become Lord Chancellor? Was it an accident?'

Wolf Hall - pg. 170

His sister Kat, her husband Morgan Williams, have been plucked from this life as fast as his daughters were taken, one day walking and talking and next day cold as stones, tumbled into their Thames-side graves and dug in beyond reach of the tide, beyond sigh and smell of the river; deaf now to the sound of Putney's cracked church bell, to the smell of wet ink, of hops, of malted barley, and the scent, still animal, of woollen bales; dead to the aroma of of pine resin and apple candles, of soul cakes baking.

Wolf Hall - pg. 131

The cardinal says, 'I am praying for Queen Katherine ... also for the dear Lady Anne. I am praying for King Francois's much success that they forget how they need their friend and ally King Henry. I am praying for the king's Majesty and all his councillors, and for the beasts in the field, and for the Holy Father and the Curia, may their decisions be guided from above. I am praying for Martin Luther, and for all those infected with his heresy, and for all who combat him, more especially the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, our dear friend Thomas More. Against all common sense and observation, I am praying for everybody, I am praying for everything. That is what it is, to be a cardinal. Only when I say to the Lord, "Now, about Thomas Cromwell -" does God say to me, "Wolsey, what have I told you? Don't you know when to give up?"'

Wolf Hall - pg. 94

You can't know Albino, he says, unless you can go back before Albino was thought of. You must go back before Caesar's legions, to the days when the bones of giant animals and men lay on the ground where one day London would be built. You must go back to the New Troy, the New Jerusalem, and the sins and crimes of the kings who rode under the tattered banners of Arthur and who married women who came out of the sea or hatched out of eggs, women with scales and fins and feathers; beside which, he says, the match with Anne looks less unusual. These are old stories, he says, but some people, let us remember, do believe them.

Wolf Hall - pg. 91

These are good days for him: every day a fight he can win. 'Still serving your Hebrew God, I see,' remarks Sir Thomas More. 'I mean, your idol Usury.' But when More, a scholar revered through Europe, wakes up in Chelsea to the prospect of morning prayers in Latin, he wakes up to a creator who speaks the swift patois of the markets; when More is settling in for a session of self-scourging, he and Rafe are sprinting to Lombard Street to get the day's exchange rates. Not that he sprints, quite; an old injury drags sometimes, and when he's tired a foot turns inward, as if he's walking back towards himself. People suggest it is the legacy of a sumer with Cesare Borgia. He likes the stories they tell about him. But where's Cesare now? He's dead.

Wolf Hall - pg. 71

He Thomas, also Tomos, Tommaso and Thomaes Cromwell, withdraws his past selves into his present body and edges back to where he was before. His single shadow slides against the wall, a visitor not sure of his welcome. Which of these Thomases saw the blow coming? There are moments when a memory moves right through you. You shy, you duck, you run; or else the past takes your fist and actuates it, without the intervention of will. Suppose you have a knife in your fist? That's how murder happens.