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Don’t waste your time, Leuconoé, living in fear and hope of the imprevisable future; forget the horoscope. Accept whatever happens. Whether the gods allow us fi
by sgt101 6y ago
Don’t waste your time, Leuconoé, living in fear and hope
of the imprevisable future; forget the horoscope.
Accept whatever happens. Whether the gods allow
us fifty winters more or drop us at this one now
which flings the high Tyrrhenian waves on the stone piers,
decant your wine: the days are more fun than the years
which pass us by while we discuss them. Act with zest
one day at a time, and never mind the rest.
–Derek Mahon, The Hunt by Night (1982)
- golemotron 6y ago> On 1 October 2020, Mahon died in Cork after a short illness, aged 78 - wikipedia Poignant. Thank you.
- crocktucker 6y agoAsk not ('tis forbidden knowledge), what our destined term of years, Mine and yours; nor scan the tables of your Babylonish seers. Better far to bear the future, my Leuconoe, like the past, Whether Jove has many winters yet to give, or this our last; This, that makes the Tyrrhene billows spend their strength against the shore. Strain your wine and prove your wisdom; life is short; should hope be more? In the moment of our talking, envious time has ebb'd away. Seize the present; trust tomorrow e'en as little as you may. Horace. The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace. John Conington. trans. London. George Bell and Sons. 1882. [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0025%3Abook%3D1%3Apoem%3D11 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...] (Wikipedia: It was commissioned by the Roman emperor Augustus in 17 BC.)