The body of a suspected Ebola victim lies in a street in the town of Koidu in eastern Sierra Leone: photo by Baz Ratner/Reuters via the Guardian, 20 December 2014
Loveliest of what I leave behind is the sunlight,
and loveliest after that the shining stars, and the moon's face,
but also cucumbers that are ripe, and pears, and apples.
δεύτερον ἄστρα φαεινὰ σεληναίης τε πρόσωπον
ἠδὲ καὶ ὡραίους σικύους καὶ μῆλα καὶ ὄγχνας·
Praxilla of Sicyon (5th c, BC): Fragment 747; the fragment comes from a hymn to Adonis; these lines are spoken by Adonis, in response to a question from the shades in the underworld ("What was the most beautiful thing you left behind?"); English by Richard Lattimore in Greek Lyrics, 1960
A grave-digger sleeps near the graves of Ebola victims at a cemetery in Freetown, Sierra Leone: photo by Baz Ratner/Reuters via the Guardian, 20 December 2014
Quarantined homes on Smart Lane, Freetown, Sierra Leone: photo by Sarah Boseley for The Guardian, 13 December 2014
Members of an ambulance service disinfect a room in a village 30 miles north of Monrovia, Liberia: photo by Jerome Delay/AP via The Guardian, 12 December 2014
Mourners in Wellington, a western area of Freetown, pray before the body of a suspected Ebola victim is taken away for burial: photo by Sarah Boseley for The Guardian, 14 December 2014
Family and friends of a man who died of suspected Ebola gather outside his house in Wellington, a western area of Freetown: photo by Sarah Boseley for The Guardian, 14 December 2014
The carcass of a fin whale on Retamar beach in Almeria, Spain: photo by Equinac/Barcroft Media via The Guardian, 20 December 2014
The carcass of a fin whale on Retamar beach in Almeria, Spain: photo by Equinac/Barcroft Media via The Guardian, 20 December 2014
4 comments:
Tom,
Forgive me but I think this lovely post needs a cynical comment to put it in a proper, coeval perspective:
Loveliest of what I leave behind is my iPhone,
and loveliest after that all the shining faces captured there,
and wholly those dearly apertured selfies
soon to be rotting everywhere.
Vassilis,
Good of you to bring what poor Praxilla has been crying out for, all these years, that soupçon of class.
People in her day made fun of this bit because of the cucumbers. "Silly Praxilla!" Little did they know what yawning centuries of aggravated silliness lay ahead.
But in truth, those picture takers at the scene of death in the street -- I didn't think they were taking pictures of themselves. Shows my actual ignorance of the essential elements of life as now lived. I've never even held one of those devices in my hand.
I thought they were taking pictures of death, I guess.
Silly Priscilla may have been lucky to get out in time.
I should've edited what I'd written more carefully and seen that I'd typed "selfies" instead of "selves", meaning "persons"--how insidiously these new contraptions trap one into making blunders everywhere--I bet Priscilla wouldn't have made such a mistake.
Well, Praxilla. Let's give the dear girl at least that much.
As I say, her star fell before it ever really rose.
(That's not easy for any of us rejected courtesans.)
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