Notes from McKennitt's journals in the CD booklet for The Mask and Mirror '
Context: May, 1993 - Stratford... have been reading through the poetry of 15th century Spain, and I find myself drawn to one by the mystic writer and visionary St. John of the Cross; the untitled work is an exquisite, richly metaphoric love poem between himself and his god. It could pass as a love poem between any two at any time... His approach seems more akin to early Islamic or Judaic works in its more direct route to communication to his god... I have gone over three different translations of the poem, and am struck by how much a translation can alter our interpretation. I am reminded that most holy scriptures come to us in translation, resulting in a diversity of views.
The Aran Islands (1907)
version in original Dutch (citaat van Gerrit Benner, in het Nederlands:) Ik ben niet een man van productie, ik ben geen fabrikant.
Quote (1961), in 'Benner: ik leef hier bijna net zo geïsoleerd als in Leeuwarden', Dutch newspaper 'Leeuwarder Courant', 20 Dec. 1961; as cited by Susan van den Berg in 'Benner en Bregman', website 'de Moanne' http://www.demoanne.nl/benner-en-bregman/, 1 Sept. 2008, note xxii
1950 - 1980
This that I am, whatever it be, is mere flesh and a little breathe and the ruling Reason (Haines translation)
This Being of mine, whatever it really is, consists of a little flesh, a little breath, and the part which governs.
A little flesh, a little breath, and a Reason to rule all – that is myself.
II, 2
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book II
The Works of Tertullian (1842), pp. xvii-xviii
Interview with Harvard Business Review, https://hbr.org/ideacast/2017/08/when-startups-scrapped-the-business-plan.html.3 August 2017
Introduction (p. cli)
The Lusiad; Or, The Discovery of India: an Epic Poem (1776)
“Translated: Ah, my faith! I know nothing about it; I am my own ancestor.”
Ah, ma foi! Je n'en sais rien. Moi je suis mon ancêtre.
When needled about his lack of noble ancestry, recounted in Sydney Smith, Saba Holland, A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith (1855), p. 245. Compare: "Curtius Rufus seems to me to be descended from himself", Tacitus recounting a saying of Tiberius, Annals, book xi. c. xxi. 16.; "To Harmodius, descended from the ancient Harmodius, when he reviled Iphicrates [a shoemaker’s son] for his mean birth, 'My nobility,' said he, 'begins in me, but yours ends in you'", Plutarch Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders, Iphicrates (rejected by some critics as not a genuine work of Plutarch).
Dans Les Leçons Élémentaires sur les Mathématiques (1795) Leçon cinquiéme, Tr. McCormack, cited in Moritz, Memorabilia mathematica or, The philomath's quotation-book (1914) Ch. 15 Arithmetic, p. 261. https://archive.org/stream/memorabiliamathe00moriiala#page/260/mode/2up
Source: The Fact of a Doorframe: Poems Selected and New, 1950-1984
Source: A Fire Upon the Deep (1992), Chapter 32 (p. 397).
