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
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Nicolás Gómez Dávila (“Don Colacho”) in his library
English translations of the aphorisms of Nicolás Gómez Dávila
Nicolás Gómez Dávila (“Don Colacho”) in his library
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Epigraphs
“Quel fanatisme!” exclama le pharmacien, en se penchant vers le notaire.
(Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, Part 2, Chapter 8)
¡Oh! Pues si no me entienden--respondió Sancho—no es maravilla que mis sentencias sean tenidas por disparates.
(Cervantes, Don Quixote, Part 2, Chapter 19)
ὀλιγόστιχα μέν, δυνάμεως δὲ μεστὰ.
(Diogenes Laërtius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, Book VII, Life of Herillus)
A hand, a foot, a leg, a head,
Stood for the whole to be imaginèd.
(Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece, ll. 1427-8)
Aux meilleurs esprits
Que d'erreurs promises!
Ni vu ni connu,
Le temps d'un sein nu
Entre deux chemises!
(Paul Valéry, Le Sylphe)
Daß es sich hier um die lange Logik einer ganz bestimmten philosophischen Sensibilität handelt und nicht um ein Durcheinander von hundert beliebigen Paradoxien und Heterodoxien, ich glaube, davon ist auch meinen wohlwollendsten Lesern nichts aufgegangen.
(Nietzsche, Letter to Georg Brandes, 8 January 1888)
Et miraris quod paucis placeo cui cum paucis convenit, cui omnia fere aliter videntur ac vulgo, a quo semper quod longissime abest id penitus rectum iter censeo.
(Petrarch, Epistolae de Rebus Familiaribus, Book XIX, Letter 7)
For a translation and explanation of these epigraphs, click here.
(Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, Part 2, Chapter 8)
¡Oh! Pues si no me entienden--respondió Sancho—no es maravilla que mis sentencias sean tenidas por disparates.
(Cervantes, Don Quixote, Part 2, Chapter 19)
ὀλιγόστιχα μέν, δυνάμεως δὲ μεστὰ.
(Diogenes Laërtius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, Book VII, Life of Herillus)
A hand, a foot, a leg, a head,
Stood for the whole to be imaginèd.
(Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece, ll. 1427-8)
Aux meilleurs esprits
Que d'erreurs promises!
Ni vu ni connu,
Le temps d'un sein nu
Entre deux chemises!
(Paul Valéry, Le Sylphe)
Daß es sich hier um die lange Logik einer ganz bestimmten philosophischen Sensibilität handelt und nicht um ein Durcheinander von hundert beliebigen Paradoxien und Heterodoxien, ich glaube, davon ist auch meinen wohlwollendsten Lesern nichts aufgegangen.
(Nietzsche, Letter to Georg Brandes, 8 January 1888)
Et miraris quod paucis placeo cui cum paucis convenit, cui omnia fere aliter videntur ac vulgo, a quo semper quod longissime abest id penitus rectum iter censeo.
(Petrarch, Epistolae de Rebus Familiaribus, Book XIX, Letter 7)
For a translation and explanation of these epigraphs, click here.
The original Spanish is:
ReplyDeleteEs indecente, y hasta obsceno, hablarle al hombre de “progreso,” cuando todo camino asciende entre cipreses funerales.
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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