September 13, 2010

#1,861

It is indecent, and even obscene, to speak to man of “progress,” when every path winds its way up between funerary cypresses.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 305

2 comments:

  1. The original Spanish is:

    Es indecente, y hasta obsceno, hablarle al hombre de “progreso,” cuando todo camino asciende entre cipreses funerales.

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  2. The mention of "funerary cypresses" is, I believe, an allusion to the funeral rites of the ancient Romans, who placed cypress branches on the outside of the house of the deceased to "announce the blemished house." See Hornblower and Spawforth (ed.), Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd edition) (Oxford University Press: 1996), p. 433.

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