Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Today's Reading: "The Rest I Will Tell to Those in Hades" - C.P. Cavafy

On this tail end of Fat Tuesday night, I'm thinking about honesty - not telling the truth instead of lying, but actually speaking instead of being silent. Ah, "what we protect here like sleepless guards" - things that won't matter down in Hades but are everything here... Perhaps you are secretive too, my dear reader, silent songbird.


The Rest I Will Tell to Those in Hades

“Indeed,” said the proconsul, closing the book,
“this line is beautiful and very true.
Sophocles wrote it in a deeply philosophic mood.
How much we’ll tell down there, how much,
and how very different we’ll appear.
What we protect here like sleepless guards,
wounds and secrets locked inside us,
protect with such great anxiety day after day,
we’ll disclose freely and clearly down there.”

“You might add,” said the sophist, half smiling,
“if they talk about things like that down there,
if they bother about them any more.”

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