I don't know if it's because I'm more optimistic than Bartleby, or just more wishy-washy, but I feel like the first part, the less negatively defined part, is a better title for this blog. Not that I have anything against negativity.
“Che Fece .... Il Gran Rifiuto”
by C. P. Cavafy
For some among us there comes up a day
when either the great Yea or the great Nay
must needs be spoken. He who has the Yea
ready within him, straightway stands revealed
and, giving it utterance, passes to his field
of self-expression. He who did not yield
assent, never repents. If Nay or Yea
were asked again, he would repeat his Nay,
though that right word afflicts him night and day.
by C. P. Cavafy
For some among us there comes up a day
when either the great Yea or the great Nay
must needs be spoken. He who has the Yea
ready within him, straightway stands revealed
and, giving it utterance, passes to his field
of self-expression. He who did not yield
assent, never repents. If Nay or Yea
were asked again, he would repeat his Nay,
though that right word afflicts him night and day.
Cavafy in translation is a fraught topic and, lacking workable Greek, I'm at the mercy of the reworders. It does seem important to me, though, that Cavafy leaves out the center of the Dante quote, which my rough English rendition would give as 'out of cowardice'. This tweaks the meaning of the quote to acknowledge that there can be bravery in acknowledging the truth, even if it is negative.
Since we're concerned with beginnings here, I want to include my favorite Cavafy, which continues to give me support years after I first read it.
The First Step
by C. P. Cavafy
The young poet Evmenis
complained one day to Theocritus:
"I've been writing for two years now
and I've composed only one idyll.
It's my single completed work.
I see, sadly, that the ladder
of Poetry is tall, extremely tall;
and from this first step I'm standing on now
I'll never climb any higher."
Theocritus retorted: "Words like that
are improper, blasphemous.
Just to be on the first step
should make you happy and proud.
To have reached this point is no small achievement:
what you've done already is a wonderful thing.
Even this first step
is a long way above the ordinary world.
To stand on this step
you must be in your own right
a member of the city of ideas.
And it's a hard, unusual thing
to be enrolled as a citizen of that city.
Its councils are full of Legislators
no charlatan can fool.
To have reached this point is no small achievement:
what you've done already is a wonderful thing."
complained one day to Theocritus:
"I've been writing for two years now
and I've composed only one idyll.
It's my single completed work.
I see, sadly, that the ladder
of Poetry is tall, extremely tall;
and from this first step I'm standing on now
I'll never climb any higher."
Theocritus retorted: "Words like that
are improper, blasphemous.
Just to be on the first step
should make you happy and proud.
To have reached this point is no small achievement:
what you've done already is a wonderful thing.
Even this first step
is a long way above the ordinary world.
To stand on this step
you must be in your own right
a member of the city of ideas.
And it's a hard, unusual thing
to be enrolled as a citizen of that city.
Its councils are full of Legislators
no charlatan can fool.
To have reached this point is no small achievement:
what you've done already is a wonderful thing."
So here it is: a place for me to meditate on the minutiae of grammar and other behavior.
