from Antigone - Sophocles

[Chorus]

...

Not to be born is best

when all is reckoned in, but once a man has seen the light

the next best thing, by far, is to go back

back where he came from, quickly as he can.

For once his youth slips by, light on the wing

lightheaded... what mortal blows can he escape

what girefs won't stalk his days?

Envy and enemies, rage and battles, bloodshed

and last of all despised old age overtakes him,

stripped of power, companions, stripped of love -

the worst this life of pain can offer,

old age our mate at last.

...

All the letters I can write
Are not fair as this—
Syllables of Velvet—
Sentences of Plush,
Depths of Ruby, undrained,
Hid, Lip, for Thee—
Play it were a Humming Bird—
And just sipped—me—

Emily Dickinson

 

 

 

Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;

for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear’d and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humor’d thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence: throw away respect,
Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while:
I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?

John Coltrane - My Favorite Things

 

from Paradise Lost - Book 1

    'Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,'

Said then the lost Archangel, 'this the seat

That we must change for Heaven? - this mournful gloom

For that celestial light? Be it so, since he

Who now is sovran can dispose and bid

What shall be right: farthest from him is best,

Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme

Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,

Where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,

Infernal World! and thou, profoundest Hell,

Receive thy new possessor - one who brings

A mind not to be changed by place or time.

The mind is its own place, and in itself

Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.

What matter where, if I be still the same,

And what I should be, all but less than he

Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least

We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built

Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:

Here we may reign secure; and, in choice,

To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:

Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.

But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,

Th' associates and co-partners of our loss,

Lie thus astonished on th' oblivious pool,

And call them not to share with us their part

In this unhappy mansion, or once more

With rallied arms to try what may be yet

Regained in Heaven, or what more lost in Hell?'

To Have Done with the Judgement of God

 The Pursuit of Fecality
 

There where it smells of shit
it smells of being.
Man could just as well not have shat,
not have opened the anal pouch,
but he chose to shit
as he would have chosen to live
instead of consenting to live dead.
 

Because in order not to make caca,
he would have had to consent
not to be,
but he could not make up his mind to lose
being,
that is, to die alive.

 
There is in being
something particularly tempting for man
and this something is none other than
CACA.
(Roaring here.)

 

Antonin Artaud

The Canterbury Tales - General Prologue

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licóur

Of which vertú engendred is the flour;

Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne

Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,

And smale foweles maken melodye,

That slepen al the nyght with open ye,

So priketh hem Natúre in hir corages,

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,

And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,

To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;

And specially, from every shires ende

Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,

The hooly blisful martir for to seke,

That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

...

Atsız - Varsağılar IV

Erlik günü geldiğinde

Yiğitlere şan görünür.

Yığın yığın harcanmağa

Nice yüz bin can görünür.

Kopunca bir büyük savaş

Er tez gider, korkak yavaş.

Yüreksize akçayla aş

Erlere meydan görünür.

Bir gün olur yılda, ayda

Birleşiriz hep Altay'da.

Güz ayında, kurultayda

Başı börklü han görünür.

Atsız der ki: Ne var canda?

Yatarız taze çimende.

Rus'un adı her geçende

Gözlerime kan görünür.

1944

Rei Ayanami