Living for one's soul

I read some remarks of Michael's

in The New York Times last night,

and I thought of a man who has

lived for his soul. It was how we

were taught to create our work, 

without putting it into so many

words. It has been a magnificent,

fortunate weekend: there is the

exciting new study of James, and

a revival of a beautiful life of

Horace, by a traveling friend of

Chatwin's. Theirs are voices that

will go on forever, and have fig-

ured continuously here, inexhaus-

tible as they are.

The Fall will be rich, with such

resources, and not taken from us;

you can feel the gathering in the

scent of the page, the scratch of

the nib in the notebook of "the

gentleman scholar," the burn of a

passable Sherry in a preceptor's

study, hexameters unraveling em-

bedded warmth of daytimes to re-

member. 

And now in a short piece, Michael 

Graves has written so well of the 

recklessness of our pursuit of the 

humane communion, as an extract of 

the human hand. This, in answer to

Horace's doubt of purpose in his

ode to a wealthy lawyer, Torquatus,

is one of the prettiest things I

have read in a long time, I am not

surprised to say.

   i.

   Who knows whether tomorrow the gods will have

   Anything more to give than they have given?

   What you can give to your own dear heart today

   Will not fall into the clutch of your heir tomorrow.

   ii.

   Who knows if Jove who counts our score

   Will toss us in a morning more?

   What with your friend you nobly share

   At least you rescue from your heir.

   iii.

   Torquatus, if the gods in heaven shall add

   The morrow to the day, what tongue has told?

   Feast then thy heart, for what thy heart has had

   The fingers of no heir will ever hold.

Quis scit an adiciant hodiernae crastina summae

   tempora di superi?

Cuncta manus avidas fugient heredis, amico

   quae dederis animo.

  

ii   George King

iii  Michael Graves

      Temple of Juno, Paestum

Michael Graves

Architecture and the Lost Art

  of Drawing

The New York Times

September 1, 2012

Horace

  Ode to Torquatus

  iv, 7

Translation 

  David Ferry (i)

  op. cit.

  Samuel Johnson (ii)

  A.E. Housman (iii)

Peter Levi

Horace

  A Life

Duckworth, 1997©

I.B. Tauris & Co., Ltd, 2012©