
A 14
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook A (1765-1770)
Bliss Divine, Chapter 82, Vegetarianism, Divine Life Society, http://www.dlshq.org/books/es19.htm (circa 1959)
A 14
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook A (1765-1770)
"To Whom It May Concern", from Adrian Mitchell's Greatest Hits (1991).
Variant translation: Lots of things I can stomach. Most of what irks me
I take in my stride, as a god might command me.
But four things I hate more than poisons & vipers:
tobacco smoke, garlic, bedbugs, and Christ.
Epigram 67, as translated by Jerome Rothenberg
Venetian Epigrams (1790)
Variant: Much there is I can stand, and most things not easy to suffer
I bear with quiet resolve, just as a god commands it.
Only a few I find as repugnant as snakes and poison —
These four: tobacco smoke, bedbugs, garlic, and †.
No. 163: On his discovery of Finnish language, in a letter to W. H. Auden (1955)
The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (1981)
“In former days I wanted wine to drink;
The wine this morning fills the cup in vain.”
Second of three poems ("Three Dirges") written by Tao Yuanming in 427, the same year he died at the age of 63, and often read as poems written for his own funeral.
John Minford and Joseph S. M. Lau (eds.), Classical Chinese Literature: An Anthology of Translations (2000), p. 513
Context: In former days I wanted wine to drink;
The wine this morning fills the cup in vain.
I see the spring mead with its floating foam,
And wonder when to taste of it again.
The feast before me lavishly is spread,
My relatives and friends beside me cry.
I wish to speak but lips can shape no voice,
I wish to see but light has left my eye.
I slept of old within the lofty hall,
Amidst wild weeds to rest I now descend.
When once I pass beyond the city gate
I shall return to darkness without end.