Clouds

The lychgate of a field showed Father Conmee breadths of cabbages, curtseying to him with ample underleaves. The sky showed him a flock of small white clouds going slowly down the wind.

James Joyce, Ulysses (1922), Wandering Rocks

Мокрая осень летела над Петербургом; и невесело так мерцал сентябревский денек. Зеленоватым роем проносились там облачные клоки; они сгущались в желтоватый дым, припадающий к крышам угрозою. (Sodden autumn was flying over Petersburg; and joylessly gleamed the September day. Thence cloud-tatters were borne in a greenish swarm; they congealed into a yellowish smoke, tumbling down to the rooftops threat-wise.)

Andrei Bely, Petersburg (1913), A Wet Autumn

The wind began to moan in hollow murmurs, as the sun went down carrying glad day elsewhere; and a train of dull clouds coming up against it menaced thunder and lightning. Large drops of rain soon began to fall, and, as the storm clouds came sailing onward, others supplied the void they left behind and spread over all the sky.

Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop (1841), Chapter 29

Небо было ужасно темное, но явно можно было различить разорванные облака, а между ними бездонные черные пятна. Вдруг я заметил в одном из этих пятен звездочку и стал пристально глядеть на нее. Это потому, что эта звездочка дала мне мысль: я положил в эту ночь убить себя. (The sky was frightfully dark, but it was possible to descry the ragged clouds clearly, and between them bottomless black spots. All of a sudden I noticed in one of these spots a little star and I began to stare at it fixedly. That was because the little star gave me an idea: I decided to kill myself that very night.)

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877)

Становилось все темнее. Туча залила уже полнеба, стремясь к Ершалаиму, белые кипящие облака неслись впереди наполненной черной влагой и огнем тучи. Сверкнуло и ударило над самым холмом. (It was growing ever darker. Nearing Jerusalem, the cloud had already flooded half the sky. Seething white billows raced ahead of the cloud saturated with black moisture and flame.)

Mikhail Bulgakov, Master and Margarita (1931-1940), Chapter 16 'The Execution'

It was principally for these reasons that Watt would have been glad to hear Erskine’s voice, wrapping up safe in words the kitchen space, the extraordinary newel-lamp, the stairs that were never the same and of which even the number of steps seemed to vary, from day to day, and from night to morning, and many other things in the house, and the bushes without and other garden growths, that so often prevented Watt from taking the air, even on the finest day, so that he grew pale, and constipated, and even the light as it came and went and the clouds that climbed the sky, now slow, now rapid, and generally from west to east, or sank down towards the earth on the other side, for the clouds seen from Mr. Knott’s premises were not quite the clouds that Watt was used to, and Watt had a great experience of clouds, and could distinguish the various sorts, the cirrhus, the stratus, the cumulus and the various other sorts, at a glance.

Samuel Beckett, Watt (1953)

There might be a line of spaced trees silhouetted against the horizon, and hot still noons above a wilderness of clover, and Claude Lorrain clouds inscribed remotely into misty azure with only their cumulus part conspicuous against the neutral swoon of the background.

Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955)

A fitful light was breaking through the clouds, and the arches circumscribing the quadrangle cast pale shadows that weakened or intensified as the clouds stole across the sun.

Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan (1946), 'The Sun Goes down Again'

De poenarum tartarearum latitudine

Etenim oculi, qui nunc colorum venustatem, concinnasque membrorum symmetrias studiose demirantur, multaque quae referre non lubet, nec licet, curiose simul et exitiose observant, tunc solis, lunae, caeterorumque astrorum splendore, suavissima Christi et Sanctorum omnium visione, omni denique quod oculorum sensum quoquo modo capere aut oblectare queat privati, tenebris, fletu, fumo, terrifioque daemonum et impiorum aspectu vehementissime offendentur. Aures, quae vocanti Christo male nunc occluduntur, diaboli suggestionibus late panduntur, musicis numeris ad ciendam voluptatem comparatis distenduntur, ineptas nugatorum facetias, facetasque ineptias, adulatores rursum, alienaeque famae corrosores avide excipiunt, quaeque miserorum clamoribus et fletibus, vivificoque Dei verbo fastidito, ad inanes fabulas se se convertunt, horribili impiorum clamore, ulutata, fletu, planctu, gemitu, suspiriis, maledictis, blasphemisque vocibus mire tunc obtundentur. [...] Gustatus, qui esculentis et poculentis plusque Sibariticis hic male sese oblectarat, quotidie splendide epulando, immoderateque helluando, omni cibariorum et potionum suavitate orbatus, perpetua isthic siti et fame excarnificabitur, aut certe felle et absynthio ex[s]atiabitur. [...] Odoratus, qui exquisitissimis aromatum et unguentorum odoribus hic ad luxum et lasciviam abutebatur, teterrimo foetore isthic affligetur. [...] Ad tactum quod spectat, ut is unus omnium latissime patet, ita ei nusquam non, unde offendi queat, ocurret. Nec impiorum corpora solum enim erunt segnia, crassa, obscura, foetida, deformiaque, verum etiam maxime patibilia. At vero sensuum exteriorum poenae, ad sensum communem, phantasiam, aestimativam, memoriam, caeterasque omnes tam organicas, quam inorganicas animae vires ordine quodam penetrantes atrocissimos isthic cruciatus excitaturae sunt.

Theodor Anton Peltanus, De Inferno et miserando impiorum statu (1569)

Truly, the eyes, which now eagerly marvel at the loveliness of colours and the pleasing symmetries of the limbs, which inquisitively yet perniciously gaze upon many things neither permissible nor decent to mention, but which then shall be bereft of the radiance of sun, moon and other stars, of the most sweet sight of Christ and all the Saints, and, in short, of all that the eyesight might seize upon or delight in howsoever, will be most violently assailed by darkness, lamentation, smoke, and the fearful sight of demons and sinners. The ears, which now are evilly shut to the call of Christ, which yawn wide to the insinuations of the devil, which gape to musical measures composed in order to excite lascivious pleasure, which avidly listen to the absurd witticisms of idle speeches, inane jokes, flatterers and those who gnaw away at others’ reputation, and which turn aside in disgust from the life-giving word of God, preferring vain stories, will then be deafened by the dreadful clamour of sinners, by wailing, lamenting, weeping, groaning, sighing, cursing and blaspheming voices. [...] The taste, which here evilly delights in Sybaritic foods and beverages, every day feasting ostentatiously, gormandising immoderately, there, deprived of the sweetness of nourishment and drink, shall be perpetually emaciated with thirst and hunger, or else glutted on gall and wormwood. [...] The smell, which here abuses the exquisite scents of perfumes and unguents for purposes of luxury and lust, there shall be afflicted with a most noisome stench. [...] With regard to touch, as this is the broadest of all [the senses] in extent, there will be no place it might run whence not to suffer mortification. Not only will sinners’ bodies be sluggish, heavy, darksome, foetid, and misshapen, but also sensitive to pain in the highest degree. And indeed the punishments of the external senses, penetrating in turn to the sensus communis, phantasia, instinctive judgement ([vis] aestimativa), memory and all the other faculties of the soul, both organic and inorganic, will in that place rouse unrelenting torments.

De Risu et ridiculo

from Johannes Kuhl Marpurgensus, Theses de risu, fletu, et locutione

Risus est diductio oris in transversum, facta ab homine, propter rei ridiculae sensum & considerationem, ad declarandam animi voluptatem. / Descriptio ex forma subiecto, obiecto, efficiente & fine. / Subiectum, recipiens Homo. / Obiectum res ridicula, sive sit factum sive dictum novum, insolens, inopinatum, argutum, admirabile, ludicrum, ineptum, indecorum. / Caussa efficiens externa est sensus rei ridiculae, motus musculorum, thoracis & buccarum. / Interna partim anima rationalis, partim facultas ridendi, partim imaginatio & consideratio rei ridiculae, partim affectus cordis inde resultans. / Forma diductio oris in transversum, seu extensio rictus in facie. / Finis, declaratio voluptatis ex re percepta. / RISUS Sonorus vel Insonorus. / Sonorus, qui fit cum sonitu excitao a spiritu e pulmonibus per guttur exeunte, propter illius ad partes oris internas allisionem. Hic fit Sine clamore vel Cum clamore, & dicitur Cachinnus.

Laughter is a drawing apart of the mouth crosswise, made by a man, on account of the meaning and consideration of a laughable thing, in order to make known the soul's delight. / Description according to form, subject, object, cause and end: / Subject: a receptive Man. / Object: a laughable thing, be it a deed or a thing that is novel, unusual, unexpected, witty, surprising, trifling, inappropriate, unseemly. / The external efficient cause is the meaning of the laughable thing, the movement of the muscles, chest, and mouth. / The internal [cause] is partly the rational soul, partly the faculty of laughter, partly the imagination and a consideration of the laughable thing, partly the favourable mood of the heart thence resulting. / The form is the drawing apart of the mouth crosswise, or the spreading of the opened mouth across the face. / The end is the expression of delight on account of the thing observed. / LAUGHTER is either resounding or soundless. / Resounding laughter is produced from the lungs by the breath and comes out of the throat with a sound, on account of its striking against the internal parts of the mouth. This might be without loud noise or with loud noise, and is called Cacchinus (loud or cackling laughter).

from Rodolphus Goclenius, De Physiologia Risus & Ridiculi

Goclenius divides laughter into two species: laughter properly speaking (proprie dictus) and laughter improperly speaking (improprie dictus). Laughter properly speaking can be simple/absolute or κατά τι [at something]. Simple laughter is more unrestrained (effusior) and is also called Cachinnus [loud laughter]. Laughter κατά τι is called subrisus [literally 'sub-laughter', also with the meaning 'a smile']. Laughter improperly speaking arises from tickling (e titillatione); it is the laughter of the monkey, a simulacrum of laughter. Laughter is also to be defined according to the species of the laughable thing (rei ridiculae). These species include the strange or novel (insolentia), the unshapely or uncouth (deformitas), the unsightly or shameful (turpitudo), the unbecoming or indecent (indecorum), witticisms (argutiae), and things unexpected or surprising (inopinata).

Exempla Ridiculi sunt Ludicrum Depositionis Scholasticae crepitus ventris, cum quaeritur apud Aristophanem in nubibus, orene, an podice sonum edant culices, & sexcenta id genus alia.

Examples of the laughable are the jest of the scholastic deposition on the fart, as when in Aristophanes' The Clouds there is an inquiry into whether gnats emit noise through their mouth or their anus, and innumerable others of the same kind.

Stimmung

Stimmung, A.I. Blyth, 2006

Hieronymi Angeriani Erotopaegnion De Pulice

Ctenocaphalides felis, A. I. Blyth, 2007

Hieronymi Angeriani Erotopaegnion De Pulice

Pulchra pulex tenerae penetrat dum membra puellae;
Clamque subit niveum dente premente femur:
Comprimitur digitis, et nigro clauditur orco:
Sed dedit hoc illi distichon alma Venus:
Mortuus hic iaceo, sed non hic mortuus; ardens
Dum premor albenti pollice, vivo pulex.

Girolamo Angeriano (1470-1535), Erotopaegnion On a Flea

A flea makes its way over the fair limbs of a tender girl,
And stealthily, with squeezing tooth, he closes in on snowy thigh.
By fingers he is gripped, and in hellish blackness confined,
But bountiful Venus to him this couplet yields:
Here lie I dead, but here not dead; blazing
As I am squeezed by whitening thumb, I live a flea.

Stultifera navis mortalium

Hi sunt qui descendunt mare in navibus, facientes operationes in aquis
multis. Ascendunt usque ad coelos, & descendunt usque ad abyssos:
anima eorum in malis tabescebat. Turbati sunt & moti
sunt sicut ebrius: & omnis sapientia eorum
devorata est.


They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters:
They mount up to the heavens, they go down again to the depths:
their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro,
and stagger like a drunken man, and are at
their wit's end.

An Tartarus sit aliquid, utrum vero nihil?

Q. An Tartarus sit aliquid, utrum vero nihil?

R. Est aliquid nempe locus cruciatus Luc. 6 [sic.]. Est nihil de quo Plato in Phaedone. Sic ᾅδης est aliquid; ut cum dicitur, descendit ἐις ᾅδην. Est etiam nihil: ut fingitur esse domus Plutonis. Plasmata enim rationis, quae Aristot. opponit πράγμασιν, referimus ad nihil.

Rodolphus Goclenius, Disputatio de nihilo, quae non est de nihilo,
vagans per omnes disciplinas

Q. Whether Tartarus is something or in fact nothing

A. The place of torment is surely something (Luke [16.23]). It is the nothing about which Plato [tells] in the Phaedo. Thus ᾅδης [Hades] is something; as when it is said, he descended ἐις ᾅδην [into Hades]. It is also nothing: as it is imagined to be the house of Pluto. For, the fictions of reasoning, which Aristotle opposed πράγμασιν [to concrete realities], we ascribe to nothing.

Labour sub tecto

Both S. Basil, and S. Chrysostome put this difference in that place, between the labour of the Ant, and the Bee, That the Ants worke but for themselves, the Bee for others: Though the Ants have a Commonwealth of their own, yet those Fathers call their labour, but private labour; because no other Common-wealths have benefit by their labour, but their own. Direct thy labours in thy calling to the good of the publique, and then thou art a civill, a morall Ant; but consider also, That all that are of the houshold of the faithfull, and professe the same truth of Religion, are part of this publique, and direct thy labours, for the glory of Christ Jesus, amongst them too, and then thou art a religious and a Christian Bee, and the fruit of thy labour shall be Hony. The labour of the Ant is sub Dio, open, evident, manifest; The labour of the Bee is sub Tecto, in a house, in a hive; They will doe good, and yet they will not be seene to doe it; they affect not glory, nay they avoyd it. For in experience, when some men curious of naturall knowledge, have made their Hives of glasse, that by that transparency, they might see the Bees manner of working, the Bees have made it their first work to line that Glasse-hive, with a crust of Wax, they they might work and not be discerned. It is a blessed sincerity, to work as the Ant, professedly, openly; but because there may be cases, when to doe so, would destroy the whole worke, though there be a cloud and a curtaine betweene thee, and the eyes of men, yet if thou doe them clearely in the sight of God, that he see his glory advanced by thee, the fruit of thy labour shall be Honey.

John Donne, Sermon preached at White-hall, 8 April 1621 (Prov. 25.16 Hast thou found honey? Eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it)

A Dish of Dainties for the Devil

A godly father sitting on a draught,
To do as need and nature hath us taught,
Mumbled (as was his manner) certain prayers,
And unto him the Devil straight repairs,
And boldly to revile him he begins,
Alleging that such prayers are deadly sins;
And that it showed he was devoid of grace,
To speak to God from so unmeet a place.
The reverent man, though at first dismayed,
Yet strong in faith, to Satan thus he said:
"Thou damned spirit, wicked, false and lying,
Despairing thine own good, and ours envying:
Each take his due, and me thou canst not hurt,
To God my prayer I meant, to thee the dirt.
Pure prayer ascends to him that high doth sit,
Down falls the filth, for fiends of hell more fit."

Sir John Harington, A New Discourse of a Stale Subject, Called the Metamorphosis of Ajax (London, 1596), Ed. Elizabeth Story Donno (London, 1974), p. 94 [spelling and punctuation modernised]

A streame of brimstone

That then there is damnation, and why it is, and when it is, is cleare enough; but what this damnation is, neither the tongue of good Angels that know damnation by the contrary, by fruition of salvation, nor the tongue of bad Angels who know damnation by a lamentable experience, is able to expresse it; A man may saile so at sea, as that he shall have laid the North Pole flat, that shall be fallen out of sight, and yet he shall not have raised the South Pole, he shall not see that; So there are things, in which a man may goe beyond his reason, and yet not meet with faith neither: of such a kinde are those things which concerne the locality of hell, and the materiality of the torments thereof; for that hell is a certaine and limited place, beginning here and ending there, and extending no farther, or that the torments of hell be materiall, or elementary torments, which in naturall consideration can have no proportion, no affection, nor appliablenesse to the tormenting of a sprit, these things neither settle my reason, nor binde my faith; neither opinion, that it is, or is not so, doth command our reason so, but that probable reasons may be brought on the other side; neither opinion doth so command our faith, but that a man may be saved, though hee thinke the contrary; for in such points, it is alwaies lawfull to thinke so, as we finde does most advance and exalt our owne devotion, and Gods glory in our estimation; but when we shall have given to those words, by which hell is expressed in the Scriptures, the heaviest significations, that either the nature of those words can admit, or as they are types and representations of hell, as fire, and brimstone, and weeping, and gnashing, and darknesse, and the worme, and as they are laid together in the Prophet, Tophet, (that is, hell) is deepe and large, (there is the capacity and content, roome enough) It is a pile of fire and much wood, (there is the durablenesse of it) and the breath of the Lord to kindle it, like a streame of Brimstone, (there is the vehemence of it:) when all is done, the hell of hels, the torment of torments is the everlasting absence of God, and the everlasting impossibility of returning to his presence.

John Donne, sermon Preached to the Earle of Carlile and his company, at Sion [? 1622], Mark 16:16 "He that beleeveth not, shall be damned"

Fresco in the porch of the Church of St. Nicholas - Udricani (1735), Bucharest

St. Symeon the New Theologian

12 March, the Repose of St. Symeon the New Theologian

Dorotheos of Gaza on encystment within the passions

Doctrina XII, De timore et poenis inferni (Migne, Patrologia Graeca, 88, 1752)

Through the body, the soul is distracted from its passions and is comforted, it eats, drinks, lays itself down to rest, keeps company, finds diversion in loved ones. But when it goes out of the body, the soul remains alone with its passions, and ultimately it is tormented by them forever, dwelling upon them, consumed with their agitation, rent asunder by them, so that it is no longer able to remember God. For remembrance of God comforts the soul, as it says in the psalm: I remembered God and was gladdened [Ps. 76:4]. But the passions do not allow the soul even this. Will you learn by a parable what it is I say? Let one of you go and shut himself up alone in a dark cell, and for three days let him not eat, drink, lay himself down to rest, meet anyone, sing psalms, pray, or remember God in any wise. Then shall he learn what the passions do to him. And this while he is yet here, but how much more so after the soul goes out of the body, and will have given itself up to the passions and will be alone with them.

Infinitely less than nothing

That great Library, those infinite Volumes of the Books of Creatures, shall be taken away, quite away, no more Nature; those reverend Manuscripts, written with Gods own hand, the Scriptures themselves, shall be taken away, quite away; no more preaching, no more reading of Scriptures, and that great School-Mistress, Experience, and Observation shall be remov'd, no new thing to be done, and in an instant, I shall know more, than they all could reveal to me. I shall know, not only as I know already, that a Bee-hive, that an Ant-hill is the same Book in Decimo sexto, as a Kingdom is in Folio, That a Flower that lives but a day, is an abridgment of that King, that lives out his threescore and ten yeers; but I shall know too, that all these Ants, and Bees, and Flowers, and Kings, and Kingdoms, howsoever they may be Examples, and Comparisons to one another, yet they are all as nothing, altogether nothing, less than nothing, infinitely less than nothing, to that which shall then be the subject of my knowledge, for, it is the knowledge of the glory of God.

John Donne, from A Sermon preached at the Spittle, upon Easter-Monday, 1622

Hê thlipsis hê aporrhêtos

As to those that fall away from God, I wonder where it is they exist, those that are far removed from Him that is everywhere, and verily, O brothers, is it a wonder full of great trembling, one that requires the reasoning of an illumined mind,



in order properly to understand this thing and not to fall into heresy as a result of ignorance of the words of the Holy Ghost. They, too, will wholly have existence within the universe, but outside of the divine light and even outside of God.



For, just as those that cannot see the shining sun, although they are wholly bathed in its light, end their days outside of the light, severed from any sense or sight of it, so too in this universe is the divine light of the Trinity,



and in its midst the sinners that are enclosed in darkness, unseeing, bereft of any divine sense, but consumed and chastised by their conscience, will know for all eternity unspeakable affliction and ineffable pain.

St. Symeon the New Theologian, Hymns, I, 215-231

(English translation: Alistair Ian Blyth)

Two sub-hells: Nyôfunjo and Nôketsujo

Depiction of the torments of the damned in the Buddhist sub-hell of Nyôfunjo (Dung Pit), or the shifunsho (place of excrement), one of the paintings in the Jigokuzôshi (Illustrated Stories of Hell) found in a Heian period (794-1185) emakimono (picture scroll) kept in the Nara National Museum ("Genkahon"; height 26.66 cm, length 433.42 cm). The text of the emakimono describes the sins and the torments of those who wallow in the Dung Pit as follows:

While these men lived, they considered dirty what in reality was not; they also considered clean what was not, due to the foolishness of their heart. (...) The pit in which they are is deep, and they are sunk in it up to their necks; it smells very bad there. This filth is beyond comparison with anything of this world, and the pains of the damned are unbearable.

(translated by Fernando G. Guttiérez, "Emakimono Depicting the Pains of the Damned," Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 22, No. 3/4 (1967), p. 285)

The scroll also illustrates the sub-hell called Nôketsujo (Place of Pus and Blood):

Those who suffer eternal anguish therein are said to have been of foolish heart and wicked intent during their lives, and to have forced others to eat filthy things:

This is why they are in hell now. An enormous amount of pus fills this place up to the mouth and nose of the damned. There are also terrible insects called Saimôshô that devour the damned to the marrow of their bones, and break their tendons. It is impossible to describe how terrible this pain is.

(translated by Fernando G. Guttiérez, "Emakimono Depicting the Pains of the Damned," Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 22, No. 3/4 (1967), p. 286)

Irremediableness

I fall sick of Sin, and am bedded and bedrid, buried and putrified in the practise of Sin, and all this while have no presage, no pulse, no sense of my sicknesse; O heighth, O depth of misery, where the first Symptome of the sicknes is Hell, and where I never see the fever of lust, of envy, of ambition, by any other light, than the darknesse and horror of Hell it selfe; and where the first Messenger that speaks to me doth not say, Thou mayest die, no, nor Thou must die, but Thou art dead: and where the first notice, that my Soule hath of her sicknes, is irrecoverablenes, iremediablenes.

John Donne, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1624), Expostulation 1

The bees of the invisible

Wir sind die Bienen des Unsichtbaren. Nous boutinons éperdument le miel du visible, pour l'accumuler dans la grande ruche d'or de l'invisble.

Rainer Maria Rilke to his Polish translator, Witold von Hulewicz,
13 November 1925 (Briefe aus Muzot, 1921-26)

The bee-swarm of the dead drones and comes upwards

Sophocles, fr. 795, Porphyr. de antro nymph. c. 18
(August Nauck, Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, 2nd edition, Leipzig: Teubner, 1889, p. 317)

Speculation on debasement: philosophies of "nothing but"

The last and lowest region of the Bardo [is] known as the Sidpa Bardo, where the dead man (...) begins to fall a prey to sexual fantasies and is attracted by the vision of mating couples (...) Freudian psychoanalysis, in all its essential aspects, never went beyond the experiences of the Sidpa Bardo; that is, it was unable to extricate itself from sexual fantasies and similar ‘incompatible’ tendencies which cause anxiety and other affective states (...) anyone who penetrates into the unconscious with purely biological assumptions will become stuck in the instinctual sphere and be unable to advance beyond it, for he will be pulled back again and again into physical existence. It is therefore not possible for Freudian theory to reach anything except an essentially negative valuation of the unconscious. It is a ‘nothing but’.

Carl Gustav Jung, Collected Works. Psychology and Religion: West and East, 2nd edition, 1966, pp. 515-516

“Materialism is the reduction of any higher form to its lower matter. Materialism tells us that organic life can be reduced to physicochemical processes, that humans are in essence only animals, that consciousness is only a neural network. Materialism tells us that the statue is only marble, that music is only a sound wave. But materialism will also tell us, in exactly the same way, that culture is only a particular form of the economy (“economic materialism”), that spirit is only a particular form of the basic sexual energy, as Freud has done (...) A downward movement through the levels explains nothing: the movement must go upward. But as soon as we say: “not only, but also,” we can immediately run through the hierarchy of levels from bottom to top: “not only marble, but also a form of beauty,” “not only a sound wave, but also harmony,” “not only nature, but also freedom,” “not only the processes of consciousness, but also the creative spirit,” and, finally, “not only relative but also absolute.” Here is the ascent that Marxism cannot accept, for it leads to the Absolute Spirit, it ascends to the absolute summit, to the sublime God himself. The opposite path leaves us only with speculation on debasement: always to say “only”, always to reduce every form to lower matter.

B. P. Vysheslavtsev, The Eternal in Russian Philosophy, trans. Penelope V. Burt, Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2002, pp. 67-68

The Cockroach in Russian Literature (1): Gogol

Надобно вам знать, милостивый государь, что я имею обыкновение затыкатьна ночь уши с того проклятого случая, когда в одной русской корчме залез мне в лебое ухо таракан. Проклятые кацапы (1), как я после узнал, едят даже щи с тараканами. Невозможно описать, что происходило со мною: в ухе так и щекочет, так и щекочет ... ну, хоть на стену! Мне помогла уже в наших местах простая старуха. И чем бы вы думали? просто зашептыбанием.

Н. В. Гоголь, "Иван Федорович Шпонька и его тетушка", Собрание сочинений, том первый, Художесвенная литература, Москва, 1976, стр. 184

You ought to know, dear sir, that I'm in the habit of stopping up my ears at night, ever since that damned incident at a Russian inn when a cockroach crawled into my left ear. Damned goat-beard Russians, as I later discovered, they even eat cabbage soup with cockroaches in it. It defies description what happened to me: it kept tickling and tickling away in my ear ... well, I was on the point of banging my head against the wall! It was a simple old woman from around our way that helped me in the end. And how do you think she did it? Simply by whispering.

N. V. Gogol, "Ivan Fyodorovich Shpon'ka and His Aunt"

(1) кацап, укр. прозвище великорусов (Гоголь и др.). С приставкой ка- от укр. цап "козел" : бритому украинцу бородатый пусский казался козлом. (Max Vasmer, Russisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg, 1950-1958. Макс Фасмер, Этимологический словарь русского языка, Перевод с немецкого и дополнения члена-корреспондента РАН О. Н. Трубачева, Том II (Е-Муж), Издательство Азбука, Санкт-Петербург, 1996, стр. 213.)

Cf. H. Tiktin, Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, vol. 3, Staatsdruckerei, Bucharest, 1925, p. 1557: țap sm. 1. (Ziegen-, auch Gems-) Bock m. Barba ... foarte pe jos pe supt bărbie ca de țap (Gaster, Crestomatie romînă) (...) Fam. scherzh. verträumt: ca un țap logodit vertraümt: Ce te uiți așa la mine ca un țap logodit? Poate-i fi amorezat (Sadoveanu). (...) - 2. Spottname a) für Griechen, wegen ihrer Gesischtzüge. Ho, țapule, că mai sînt și eu pe-aici (Alecsandri). (...) - b) für Geistliche u. Mönche, wohl wegen ihrer Bärte. Sînt vr'o zece mii de țapi cu călugărițe cu tot în țară (Jipescu). (...) Et. Vgl. alb. skjap, ts(j)ap, tskjap. Nslov. serb. poln. cap, czech. magy. cáp stammen aus dem Rum.

Stimmung

Da sind Tage, wo alles um einen licht ist, leicht, kaum angegeben in der hellen Luft und doch deutlich. Das Nächste schon hat Töne der Ferne, ist weggenommen und nur gezeigt, nicht hergereicht; und was Beziehung zur Weite hat: der Fluß, die Brücken, die langen Straßen und die Plätze, die sich verschwenden, das hat diese Weite eingenommen hinter sich, ist auf ihr gemalt wie auf Seide. Es ist nicht zu sagen, was dann ein lichtgrüner Wagen sein kann auf dem Pont-neuf oder irgendein Rot, das nicht zu halten ist, oder auch nur ein Plakat an der Feuermauer einer perlgrauen Häusergruppe. Alles ist vereinfacht, auf einige richtige, helle plans gebracht wie das Gesicht in einem Manetschen Bildnis. Und nichts ist gering und überflüssig. Die Bouquinisten am Quai tun ihre Kästen auf, und das frische oder vernutzte Gelb der Bücher, das violette Braun der Bände, das größere Grün einer Mappe: alles stimmt, gilt, nimmt teil und bildet eine Vollzähligkeit, in der nichts fehlt.

Rainer Maria Rilke, Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge (1910)

La révélation

Je crois et avec foi, peut-être que comme la vue en rêve d'une personne est, à certains points de vue, une preuve de sa réalité métaphysique, la révélation est sur les mêmes points la preuve de la réalité métaphysique de certains hasards qui nous arrivent par moments ; de la façon, de la disposition dont quelquefois des choses se présentent et réveillent en nous des sensations inconnues de joie et de surprise : les sensations de la révélation.

De Chirico

Regressionstendenzen

Craterium aureum

Ach, nie genug dieses einen Erlebnisses: das Leben währet vierundzwanzig Stunden und, wenn es hoch kommt, war es eine Kongestion! Ach immer wieder in diese Glut, in die Grade der plazentaren Räume, in die Vorstufe der Meere des Urgesichts: Regressionstendenzen, Zerlösung des Ich! Regressionstendenzen mit Hilfe des Worts, heuristische Schwächezustände durch Substantive – das ist der Grundvorgang, der alles interpretiert: Jedes ES das ist der Untergang, die Verwehbarkeit des Ich; jedes DU ist der Untergang, die Vermischlichkeit der Formen. ‘Komm alle Skalen tosen Spuk, Entformungsgefühl’ - das ist der Blick in die Stunde und die Glücke, wo die ,Götter fallen wie Rosen’ - Götter und Götterspiel. Schwer erklärbare Macht des Wortes, das löst und fügt.

Gottfried Benn, Lyrisches Ich (1927)

Lycogala conicum

Cribraria vulgaris

Photographs (c) The Eumycetozoan Project, 2006

Нос / Nez / Nas / Nose

Le mal n'est donc pas une simple absence (...) c'est un mélange de l'être et du non-être. Toutes les manifestations du Malin dans le monde sont conditionnées par les trois formes de son essence : il est parasite, imposteur et imitateur, faisant du monde une parodie du Royaume. Le récit intitulé le Nez nous apporte une claire démonstration de cette triple nature. En effet le Mal se sert du nez comme d'un point d'attache parasitaire. En devenant le double du major Kovalev, il usurpe quelque chose de sa personne en véritable imposteur qu'il est. Enfin, en prenant possession de la Cathédrale de Saint-Pétersbourg, il imite et parodie Celui qui est le Maître du Temple.

Paul Evdokimov, Gogol et Dostoïevski. La descente aux enfers, Desclée de Brouwer, 1961

Epistola obscuri viri (Malbrough theme 3)

Herbordus Mistladerius Magistro Ortvino incomparabili in doctrina praeceptori suo sulsissimo Salutem dicit quam nemo dinumerare poterit

Illuminatissime magister, quando discessi a vestra dominatione ad Suollis ante duos annos, promisistis mihi ad manum meam quod velitis mihi frequenter scribere, et mihi modum dare dictandi in vestris dictaminibus: ast non facitis, et mihi non scribitis sive vivitis, sive non vivitis; sive vivitis sive non vivitis, non tamen scribitis ut scio quid est, quomodo vel qualiter est. Sancte deus, quomodo me sollicitatis: rogo vos propter deum et sanctam Geogium [sic.], liberate me ex mea cura, quia timeo quod caput vobis dolet, vel quod habetis infirmitatem in ventre, et estis laxus, sicut olim fuistis quando permerdastis caligas vestras in plateis et non sensistis, donec una mulier dixit: "Domine magister, ubi sedistis in merdis? ecce tunica et pantofoli vestri sunt maculata": tunc ivistis in domum domini Ioannis Pfefferkorn, et mulier eius dedit vobis alia vestimenta: vos debetis comedere ova dura, et castaneas in fornace assatas, necnon fabas coctas aspersas cum papavere, ut fit in Westvalia patria vestra. Mihi somniavit de vobis quod habetis gravem tussim, et multum de flegmate: comedite zuccarum, et pisas contusas mixtas cum serpillo et allio contrito, ac ponite unum assatum caepe ad umbilicum vestrum, et per sex dies debetis abstinere a mulieribus; tegite caput et lumbos vestros bene, et sanabitis. Vel sumite receptum quod uxor domini Ioannis Pfefferkorn saepe languentibus dederat, quod est probatum saepe. Ex Suollis.

Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum, I, 40.

The Digestionary Theory of Literary Genre

On pourrait ranger (...) le genre humain civilisé en trois grandes catégories : les reguliers, les resserrés et les relâchés. (...) Pour me faire comprendre par un exemple, je le prendrai dans le vaste champ de la littérature. Je crois que les gens de lettres doivent le plus souvent à leur estomac le genre qu’ils ont préférablement choisi. Sous ce point de vue, les poètes comiques doivent être dans les réguliers, les tragiques dans les resserrés, et les élégiaques et pastoureaux dans les relâchés : d’ou il suit que le poète le plus lacrymal n’est séparé du poète le plus comique que par quelque degré de coction digestionnaire.

[Brillat-Savarin.] Physiologie du goût, ou méditations de gastronomie transcendante, Ouvrage théorique, historique et à l’ordre du jour. Paris: Charpentier, Éditeur, 1838. P. 231 "Influence de la digestion"

One might separate civilised human kind into three broad categories: the regular, the constipated and the lax. (...) In order to make myself understood, I shall take an example from the vast field of literature. I believe that men of letters for the most part owe their preferred choice of genre to their stomach. From this point of view, the comic poets are to be found among the regular, the tragic poets among the constipated, and the elegaic and pastoral poets among the lax: whence it follows that the most lachrymose poet is separated from the most comic poet only by a degree of digestionary coction.

De Chirico on the Surrealists

Les surréalistes

Poco dopo esser giunto a Parigi trovai una forte opposizione da parte di quel gruppo di degenerati, di teppistoidi, di figli di papà, di sfaccendati, di onanisti e di abulici che pomposamente si erano autobattezzati surrealisti e parlavano anche di "rivoluzione surrealista" e di "movimento surrealista". Questo gruppo di individui poco raccomandabili era capeggiato da un sedicente poeta che rispondeva al nome di André Breton ed il quale aveva come aiutante di campo un altro pseudo-poeta di nome Paul Eluard, che era un giovanottone scialbo e banale, con il naso storto e una faccia tra di onanista e di cretino mistico. André Breton, poi, era il tipo classico del somaro pretenzioso e dell'impotente arrivista.

Memorie della mia vita, Astrolabio, Rome, 1945

De Chirico

Shortly after arriving in Paris I encountered strong opposition on the part of that group of degenerates, hooliganoids, spoiled brats, meddlers, onanists and idlers that had pompously baptised themselves surrealists and even talked about a "surrealist revolution" and a "surrealist movement". That group of unsavoury individuals was led by a self-styled poet who answered to the name of André Breton and as his second-in-command he had another pseudo-poet by the name of Paul Eluard, who was a pasty, dull young man, with a crooked nose and a face between that of an onanist and a mystical cretin. André Breton, besides, was the classic type of the pretentious ass and the impotent self-seeker.

André Breton

Stimmung

Cette nouveauté est une poésie étrange et profonde, mystérieuse et solitaire infiniment, qui se base sur le stimmung (j'use de ce mot allemand car il dit bien ce qu'il veut dire ; on pourrait le traduire par le mot atmosphère, pris dans le sens moral), qui se base, dis-je, sur la stimmung d'un après-midi d'automne quand le ciel est clair e les ombres plus longues que pendant l'été, car le soleil commence à être plus bas.

Soudain tout ce plein air perdit son atmosphère, sa stimmung ; les poutres du plafond et les lames du plancher apparurent violemment éclarées de côté ;

--> « c'est un truc du photographe du pays », chuchotait-on dans les cafés et sur les places publiques.

« Mes chers amis, vous avez probablement senti, aussi bien que moi, la stimmung (atmosphère) toute particulière qui se dégage lorsque sortant dans les rues, vers le coucher du soleil, à la fin d'une chaude journée d'été, après avoir dormi pendant l'après-midi (rappelez-vous ce que je vous ai dit, plusiers fois déjà, à propos du sommeil de l'après-midi) on sent l'odeur des rues fraîchement arrosées. Si la ville est située au bord de la mer, la puissance suggestive de cette odeur se trouve par le fait même doublée et même triplée. »

Giorgio de Chirico