Let Ithaka be always in your thoughts.
To get there is your goal and destiny.
But do not hasten to your journey’s end:
it’s better if it lasts for many years
so that you'll reach the island when you’re old,
wealthy with all you’ve gained along the way,
not hoping Ithaka will make you rich.
Your marvellous journey is Ithaka’s gift.
Without her you would not have started out.
But she has nothing more to give you now.
And if you find she's poor, you’ve not been fooled.
So wise have you become, so much you’ve learned,
that you will know what Ithakas must be.
Source: Seen in passing on X-Twitter. Holler if you want the whole thing.
Author/Translator: Armand D'Angour, Professor of Classics, Oxford. Cello lover. Larkin about. Turning life into Latin verse, one hexameter at a time. Podcast “It’s All Greek (& Latin!) to Me”.
Posted: Feb 06
I had to narrow my eyes to a squint to appreciate this face. Seeing it from across the room works even better. The ironwork makes me think of a suit of armour, no doubt prompted by the shields. It was an impressive bridge to begin with; now, it speaks, starting with a “Harrumph!”
Laurna – It’s funny. Sometimes I crop a photo to show where the face is, but find that this loses some context (or something) that makes the face visible/noticeable. It’s possible to get too close . . .
I can see how the cropping would entail a sense of your own associations with the purported “face” and how much the surroundings can contribute to it. You have given me many memorable such images. I do try to avoid seeing faces in my own environment or I should be distracted constantly. The face in a dresser of my parents haunted me as a child so that I “felt it as a presence” whenever I walked into the room. I was in my teens before I could shed that feeling.
Laurna – Wow. Amazing how strong and enduring those childhood impressions can be.
Rather a rabbit in the headlights!
Or wide-eyed stare and a froggy-mouthed reaction to 3 more years!?
Barbara – Well, let’s hope she was counting from the start of *this* year . . . Or, she could be wrong. There’s been lots of that going around.
Isabel – you see a long columnar nose. I see a thin moustache below the nose with a row of teeth below the moustache that badly need cleaning.
John – 🙂 Maybe we should send a note to the Glasgow public works department to get out there and brush up/off their bridges.
Still haven’t figured out what the green fuzz is on the moustache on the left side of the ‘face’. Any hints?
John – A plant. 🙂 No idea which plant specifically, but I’m always amazed at how little soil plants seem to need (if any). They often appear to be growing out of a crack in a rock that allows water to accumulate – and not much more.