Previous William Thomas Sherman Info Page postings, quotes, observations, etc.
The goddess rich bade the nymphs go to the myrtle trees:
With the boy [Cupid] as companion of the girls: it could not however have been trusted
For Love to be idle if arrows struck.
And so, nymphs; he placed aside his arms, Love is at rest.
Tomorrow let him love who never loved and each who loved let him love tomorrow.
He is commanded to go defenseless, to go naked he is commanded
Not with bow, not arrow, nor with fire to harm.
But, even so, nymphs beware, because Cupid is beautiful:
In arms all the same, when Love is bare.
Tomorrow let him love who never loved and each who loved let him love tomorrow.
Venus arranged that modesty be sent to you virgins.
The thing that together we ask: yield, Virgin Delia
That the grove will be bloodless from the havoc of animals.
Herself she wanted to ask you, if chastity has turned aside,
Herself she wanted you to come, if virginity is fitting.
Now you see tribes of dancers in revelry at night,
Gathering in company to go through your dances,
Flowers among the garlands, myrtle leaves among the cottages.
Neither Ceres, nor Bacchus are away, nor the god of the poets
Hold back, all the night is awake singing:
Dione reigns in the woods: Delia, you must recede.
Tomorrow let him love who never loved and each who loved let him love tomorrow.
She decrees flowers from mount Hybla to stand at the judgment seat of the goddess;
To the guardians she declares the law, and they sit Thankful.
Hybla, showering all with flowers, whatever the year brought,
Hybla, the height of floral dress, as wide as Aetna's fields.
In this country girls are torn from the spring,
All within the grove, all in riches, all inhabit the mount.
All are enjoined to assist the boy and mother differently,
She directs girls to hide nothing and to trust in Love.
Tomorrow let him love who never loved and each who loved let him love tomorrow.
~~
The original.
Ipsa nymphas diva luco jussit ire myrteo:
It puer comes puellis: nec tamen credi potest
Esse Amorem feriatum si sagittas vexerit.
Ite, nymphae; posuit arma, feriatus est Amor.
Cras amet qui numquam amavit, quique amavit cras amet.
Iussus est inermis ire, nudus ire iussus est,
Neu quid arcu, neu sagitta, neu quid igne laederet.
Sed tamen, nymphae, cavete, quod Cupido pulcher est:
Totus est in armis idem, quando nudus est Amor.
Cras amet qui numquam amavit, quique amavit cras amet.
Conpari Venus pudore mittit ad te virgines.
Una res est quam rogamus: cede, virgo DeIia
Ut nemus sit incruentum de ferinis stragibus.
Ipsa vellet te rogare, si pudicam flecteret,
Ipsa vellet ut venires, si deceret virginem.
Iam tribus choros videres feriantis noctibus
Congreges inter catervas ire per saltus tuos,
Floreas inter coronas, myrteas inter casas.
Nec Ceres, nec Bacchus absunt, nec poetarum deus.
Detinenter tota nox est perviglanda canticis:
Regnet in silvis Dione: tu recede, Delia.
Cras amet qui numquam amavit quique amavit cras amet.
Iussit Hyblaeis tribunal stare diva floribus;
Praeses ipsa iura dicet, adsidebunt Gratiae.
Hybla, totus funde flores, quidquid annus adtulit
Hybla, florum sume vestem, quantus Aetnae campus est
Ruris hic erunt puellae vel puellae fontium
Quaeque sllvas, quaeque lucos, quaeque montes incolunt
Iussit omnes adsidere pueri mater alitis,
Iussit et nudo puellas nil Amori credere.
Cras amet qui numqnam amavit quique amavit cras amet.
[To be continued.]
A: Give us your money or we'll beat you up.
B: You do that and I'll call the police.
A: That won't do you any good. We are more powerful than the police. Besides they work for us now anyway.
B: All right then, all right. We'll call out the army and national guard.
A: That's not going to help either because, you see, we have spirit people backing us.
B: Oh, if it is spirit people I'm dealing with then, ok, just tell me what you want me to do in order to fully cooperate.
A: That's the idea. But don't feel too badly because we can do you big favors too, you know. As far as what you can do, for starters don't help or talk to Sherman. For one thing, he's eligible for our grand prize drawing and he's not exactly showing great thanks and appreciation of the honor, now is he?
Caveat Emptor
Just for your consumer record, and if you don't know already -- The Electric Prunes and The 13th Floor elevators are hoax bands pretending to be 60's psychedelic groups (as also is much, if not all, of the music contained on the "Nuggets" CD anthology.) The Seeds were never punk or garage music; these descriptions came up much, much later, and were superimposed on them by people, slyly as they think, mocking the band (i.e. any music produced outside the confines and supervision of Capitol City are "garage" based.) Although there is a Sky Saxon CD entitled "King of Garage Rock," I rather think the naming of it was done by someone else, and if he agreed it was due to his very flexible and easy going nature. As to "Grunge Rock," that phenomena was for real, and concocted and put out by more or less the same people who promote and manufacture these hoaxes and historical distortions.
I was reading the amazon.com reviewers comments regarding the book (a copy of which I also happen to own) The First and Second Books of Enoch: The Ethiopic and Slavonic Texts: A Comprehensive Translation with Commentary by Joseph B. Lumpkin, and one of the reviewers has written: "Though this is a scholarly text, it is also a good read. If you are just discovering 'Enoch' I recommend reading it in the heat of summer as it will chill you to the bone and you won't need to run your air conditioner." Leaving aside the question of if and to what extent the present existing version of Enoch (found in Ethiopia in the 18th century) is authentic, I would advise you to steer clear of certain interpretations of spirit people which it might prompt in some; namely that spirit people are necessarily somehow superhuman. If criminal spirit people are superhuman it is because they have what amounts to stealth and mind control technology; they use violence, extortion, and rapine to have their way. They have a forbidding gang headed by a clever and determined general. In other words, if you were asked to contend with or told to answer to an army (or air force or navy) without thinking of fighting them -- yes, they would or might naturally seem quite terrifying. However, to a military minded person, such spirit people should and would seem no more awesome than any other enemy, and all that's needed is a strategy and a resolve to fight and win; or else, if worse come to worse, to go down honorably in the attempt. But you see, many do not think, of resisting, and so instead merely speak of being frightened by, and therefore automatically giving in, to bullying spirit people; which approach, needless to say, is far removed from the better part of wisdom and intelligence.
"The Night Vigil of Venus" ("Pervigilium Veneris") written by an anonymous poet of the 2nd or 3rd century A.D. is yet more delightful proof that:
An old poem you never knew
Can be good as a poem brand new.
As part of my ongoing study of Latin, I thought to try to translate it, and below then is my at present progress in this undertaking. Understand, mind you, I am very much a novice at this sort of thing, and it is not unlikely that some of my interpretation has produced at points erroneous, if not risible, results. Let sound and qualified Latin scholars be the judge. In any event, it's for me an amusing and pleasurable, if at times daunting, exercise; the full and final results I will later post when I come to being done.
Tomorrow let him love who never loved and each who loved let him love tomorrow.
Spring new, spring now melodious, spring is the birth of the world.
Loves unites in spring, birds marry in spring;
Tomorrow love couples among the shades of the wood;
Interweaves lively in a cottage under myrtle branches
Tomorrow Dione speaks the law sustained by her throne sublime.
Tomorrow let him love who never loved and each who loved let him love tomorrow.
Then life from above foams the sea into a mass;
Dark blue amidst the crowds, amidst the two legged and horses
Dione makes waves about the husband of Imbros.
Tomorrow let him love who never loved and each who loved let him love tomorrow.
Herself flourishing purple she paints the year's flowers
From her breasts arise the West Wind's breath;
She presses warmth on muscles, herself moisture's splendor,
In the breeze of the Night whom she leaves, she scatters wetting waters.
Look the tears sparkle quivering from their falling weight;
In drops headlong the small orbs delay their downfall.
Look! modesty and beauty bring forth majesty
That fluid which wets the serene stars of night.
In the Morning the damp robe falls loose on maiden breasts.
Herself commands in the morning where the virgin dews wed roses:
Refrains Cythera from warmth; subside kisses of love;
Subside jewels, subside gusts, subsides the throne of purple.
Tomorrow the blush, which dress conceals the hidden fire,
Of the special marriage, unashamed, forbids not release.
Tomorrow let him love who never loved and each who loved let him love tomorrow.
[-- with the remainder of the poem to come in the days ahead.]
The original (so far):
Cras amet qui nunquam amavit quique amavit cras amet.
Ver novum, ver iam canorum, vere natus orbis est,
Vere concordant amores, vere nubunt alites,
Cras amorum copulatrix inter umbras arborum
Implicat casas virentes de flagello myrteo
Cras Dione iura dicit fulta sublimi throno.
Cras amet qui numquam amavit quique amavit cras amet.
Tunc cruore de superno spumeo pontus globo
Caerulas inter catervas, inter et bipedes equos
Fecit undantem Dionem de maritis imbribus.
Cras amet qui numquam amavit quique amavit cras amet.
Ipsa gemmis purpurantem pingit annum floridis,
Ipsa surgentes papillas de Favoni spiritu
Urget in toros tepentes, ipsa roris lucidi,
Noctis aura quem relinquit, spargit umentis aquas.
En micant lacrimae trementes de caduco pondere:
Gutta praeceps orbe parvo sustinet casus suos.
En pudorem florulentae prodiderunt purpurae:
Umor ille, quem serena astra rorant noctibus.
Mane virgineas papillas solvit umenti peplo.
Ipsa jussit mane ut udae virgines nubant rosae:
Facta Cypridis de cruore deque Amoris osculis
Deque gemmis deque flabris deque solis purpuris
Cras ruborem, qui latebat veste tectus ignea,
Unico marita voto non pudebit solvere.
Cras amet qui numquam amavit, quique amavit cras amet.
He had to get all these people, and do all these things to people (not to mention animals) -- why? Because he was jealous.
Sure the devil can love you dearly for a day, a season, some years and decades, or perhaps even a lifetime. But understand this. After that he can kill you too if he wants, and think nothing of doing so; such is the difference between having a friend who is honest, rational and moral and one who isn't.
Did the church's rejection of Arianism result in its becoming more irrational in its intellectual and theological constitution? The advantage of Arius view is to say that his is a more pure and consistent monotheism because it refrains from to ascribing the quality of Logos to God who is without qualities (at least, "qualities" in the sense such as we are capable of knowing.) Against Arius is the argument that if Christ was begotten and created after the Father, it denies him equality with the Father; also it would seem to makes him no important than even the devil who was also created. The problem with Arius' Nicene nay-sayers is that their view of God ends up losing the better (but, admittedly, not the only) logically cogent view of him; thus opening up one door to the prevalence of Islam. As to Christ being risked by being put on par with the devil; this objection is easily surmounted by seeing what a fool and a monster the devil and autocratic spirit people are; and as such are without any semblance of lasting authority and legitimacy.
I had a visit from Attis the other day; and at least this much can be said for him, as well as glowing (or better yet shimmering) warmly and quite radiantly, he embarrassed and put the magician off guard.
Later Note. Recollect, spirit people can pretend to be other spirit persons; so a that a scandalous reputation, say, traditionally assigned to some ancient cult may subsequently have been owing to others deliberately impersonating its "deity" and or devotees, thereby giving it a bad name; with similar and other variations of misunderstanding and misinterpretation possible. This in turn reminds us, that unless and until there is a commonly established and accepted moral, rational, and scientific truth test for determining true from false spirit people, it is eminently more safe and practical to refuse any given one of them our wholehearted trust (to say the least.)
While it may be correct to say that Christianity in its earliest historical form did not seek social progress in this world, the idea was not to say that social progress in this world didn't matter or wasn't desirable. Rather the point was one of saying if you can't and don't change and clean men's hearts, you cannot hope to change their thinking and way of living; and without such revolutionary change of heart there can be no real and meaningful societal reform -- the truth of which I think any sensible and level headed person, if they intelligently consider the question, can otherwise easily see and recognize for themselves.
One of the latest "goofball" internet ads. There's no need for me to spend a lot of time on the subject, but let us at least reiterate some of what we said previously. Although Microsoft did have problems of their own, the real culprit as it turns out were the crooks who seized and hijacked the company. The situation with the computer industry is much like that with Hollywood and films. Remember our earlier observation from Oafmore: "I guess people don't like movies any more." Of course, it's not that people don't like movies. What they don't like is Oafmore movies. Same thing here. Leaving aside the issue of monopolization of and by the Windows operating system, Microsoft did all right in its heyday. But the people who took it over were just a bunch of parasites and good for nothings (empowered by witchcraft and murder) who don't really know how to do much of anything; so that -- surprise, surprise -- Microsoft is no longer competitive. (I believe you get the idea.)
