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
Nicely done Isabel.
Certainly is lots of water flowing, thank goodness though not as much as a few years ago.
Jim R – Many thanks. Coming from Alberta, I’m always impressed with the size of even unremarkable rivers in this part of the world, and never more so than in the spring.
Isabel – if you want more noise and fast-running water, may I suggest that stretch of the Ottawa River that runs between Ottawa and what used to be called Hull, QC. The new Kitchi Zibi (spelling ??) residential development has nice paths that provide great views of the rushing water.
John – 🙂 Thanks for two tips. I’ve never heard of Kitchi Zibi, under any spelling, but will check it out.
Ah. Here it is: Kichi Sibi.
The gentle roar of spring, indeed. Fun vid!
Barbara – 🙂 Thanks!
I got swept away by a spring freshet one year, long ago. White water looks beautiful in still pictures; adding sound gives some sense of the sheer power of a river in flood; but I can say from experience that they’re a pale imitation of actually being IN that water.
Jm T
Jim T – <> Yikes. I can believe it. Good thing you survived to tell the tale.
Isabel
Water can appear so calm, and then just around the next bend it can sweep you away in an instant.
Or like last summer when I went on a kayak. Water calm and barely a ripple. Then, suddenly a wake, from a boat on the other side of an island, took me broadside, and I went under the water when the kayak tipped.
Tom
Tom – Yikes. Indeed, being hit broadside is the scariest part of kayaking. We kayak in pairs and often “raft up” when we can see boats coming (usually on the Rideau River, where they come in bunches due to the locks). Even with a small wake we try to cross it at right angles to the wave’s direction. But when you don’t see it coming, well, there’s not much to be done.
By the time it reaches us purified to drink, cook, bathe, and play with, we forget the raw power of its origins and those before us who lived with it untamed and who strove to channel it. The sound accompaniment is breathtaking and bone-rattling: an awakening that shrinks and corrects my prim and domestic thoughts of spring. A deeper message roils there to contemplate.
Laurna – Indeed. It’s akin to the difference between a light spring breeze and a hurricane, and it can be hard to see/appreciate the potential danger if you’ve only experienced the docile version.