Hiro Protagonist

"If the Doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite."
--William Blake

Notes from Huxley's "Doors of Perception."

Monday night I finished reading Arturo Perez-Reverte's "The Fencing Master." It was fantastic. While reading I decided to keep a list of the literature and writers referenced within the book.

- Dumas, Hugo & Balzac. Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives.' Homer (Pg. 39)
- Novalis's 'Heinrich von Ofterdingen.' Chateaubriand & Vigny
- edition in quarto 'Memoriale de Sainte Helene'(Pg. 59)
- Talleyrand's 'Memoirs' (Pg. 72)
- Cervantes - Man from la Mancha (Pg. 79)
- "...volume of short poems by Compoamor..."(Pg. 117)
- "If you need nothing from anyone, then you're free like Diogenes in his barrel." (Pg. 118)
- "...a Dumas melodrama."(Pg. 129)
- "...like a character out of a play by Tomayo y Baus."(Pg. 129)
- Heinrich von Ofterdingen w/ a passage(Pg. 139)
- Rousseau & Voltaire (Pg. 172)
- Ficticious- Carceles - "All For One; or 'The Sovereign People' " - ". . .stormy drama in free verse plagiarized from Lope de Vega's "Fuenteovejuna.' " (Pg. 191)

- Plus, there is a passage only identified as a "French novel" on page 209:
"Even if the whole world turned aginst him, as long as his soul remained calm, he would feel not a moment's saddness."
-Another passage, this one completely unidentified, is on page 210:
"Any moral character is closely bound up with scenes of autumn: those leaves that fall like our hours, those clouds that flee like our illusions, that grows colder like our life, all weave secret bonds with our fate. . ."

Wow. Thanks, Hiro...

Campoamor, Ramón de
1817–1901, Spanish poet, the first to break with the romantic tradition of long, tragic, and emotional poetry. While no longer generally popular, he was one of the most popular Spanish poets of his time, noted for his humorous short poems collected in Doloras (1846), Pequeños poemas (1872–74), and Humoradas (1886–88).

EPIC POEMS No matter how content I be, a pain is hidden in me that I feel I know not where born from I know not what. * I am grieved or content, born into full hands, for each joy one hundred griefs, for each pain another hundred.

CANTARES Por más contento que esté, una pena en mí se esconde que la siento no sé dónde y nace de no sé qué. ... Tenga penas o contento, me nacen a manos llenas, por cada placer cien penas, por cada pena otras ciento.

PANGS Love & glory On sand and on wind the heavens have smelted all! The world of clay the same as the world of sentiment. From a groundwork of love and glory they are but air and sand. Towers by which through illusion world and hearts are filled; those of the world are sand, and air those of the heart!

DOLORAS Amor y Gloria ¡Sobre arena y sobre viento lo ha fundado el cielo todo! Lo mismo el mundo del lodo que el mundo del sentimiento. De amor y gloria el cimiento sólo aire y arena son. ¡Torres con que la ilusión mundo y corazones llena; las del mundo sois arena, y aire las del corazón !

CAPRICES Speak to me more... and more..., let your accents draw me out of this abyss; the day that I do not escape myself, my thoughts will be devoured. *** Poking fun at his rivals he writes glees for you with a sword.

HUMORADAS Háblame más... y más..., que tus acentos me saquen de este abismo; el día en que no salga de mí mismo, se me van a comer los pensamientos.

(Obras Completas, Barcelona, 1888)

For Ken-

decyphered secrets
This is a mistranslation
No Such Agency

Several Emily Dickinson poems with bees:

#81
We should not mind so small a flower --
Except it quiet bring
Our little garden that we lost
Back to the Lawn again.

So spicy her Carnations nod --
So drunken, reel her Bees --
So silver steal a hundred flutes
From out a hundred trees --

That whoso sees this little flower
By faith may clear behold
The Bobolinks around the throne
And Dandelions gold.


#128
Bring me the sunset in a cup,
Reckon the morning's flagons up
And say how many Dew,
Tell me how far the morning leaps --
Tell me what time the weaver sleeps
Who spun the breadth of blue!

Write me how many notes there be
In the new Robin's ecstasy
Among astonished boughs --
How many trips the Tortoise makes --
How many cups the Bee partakes,
The Debauchee of Dews!

Also, who laid the Rainbow's piers,
Also, who leads the docile spheres
By withes of supple blue?
Whose fingers string the stalactite --
Who counts the wampum of the night
To see that none is due?

Who built this little Alban House
And shut the windows down so close
My spirit cannot see?
Who'll let me out some gala day
With implements to fly away,
Passing Pomposity?


#134
Perhaps you'd like to buy a flower,
But I could never sell --
If you would like to borrow,
Until the Daffodil

Unties her yellow Bonnet
Beneath the village door,
Until the Bees, from Clover rows
Their Hock, and Sherry, draw,

Why, I will lend until just then,
But not an hour more!


#138
Pigmy seraphs -- gone astray --
Velvet people from Vevay --
Balles from some lost summer day --
Bees exclusive Coterie --
Paris could not lay the fold
Belted down with Emerald --
Venice could not show a check
Of a tint so lustrous meek --
Never such an Ambuscade
As of briar and leaf displayed
For my little damask maid --

I had rather wear her grace
Than an Earl's distinguished face --
I had rather dwell like her
Than be "Duke of Exeter" --
Royalty enough for me
To subdue the Bumblebee.


#155
The Murmur of a Bee
A Witchcraft -- yieldeth me --
If any ask me why --
'Twere easier to die --
Than tell --

The Red upon the Hill
Taketh away my will --
If anybody sneer --
Take care -- for God is here --
That's all.

The Breaking of the Day
Addeth to my Degree --
If any ask me how --
Artist -- who drew me so --
Must tell!


#206
The Flower must not blame the Bee --
That seeketh his felicity
Too often at her door --

But teach the Footman from Vevay --
Mistress is "not at home" -- to say --
To people -- any more!


#1035
Bee! I'm expecting you!
Was saying Yesterday
To Somebody you know
That you were due—

The Frogs got Home last Week—
Are settled, and at work—
Birds, mostly back—
The Clover warm and thick—

You'll get my Letter by
The seventeenth; Reply
Or better, be with me—
Yours, Fly.


#1343
A single Clover Plank
Was all that saved a Bee
A Bee I personally knew
From sinking in the sky --

'Twixt Firmament above
And Firmament below
The Billows of Circumference
Were sweeping him away --

The idly swaying Plank
Responsible to nought
A sudden Freight of Wind assumed
And Bumble Bee was not --

This harrowing event
Transpiring in the Grass
Did not so much as wring from him
A wandering "Alas" --


#1627
The pedigree of Honey
Does not concern the Bee,
Nor lineage of Ecstasy
Delay the Butterfly
On spangle journeys to the peak
Of some perceiveless thing --
The right of way to Tripoli
A more essential thing.

--

The Pedigree of Honey
Does not concern the Bee --
A Clover, any time, to him,
Is Aristocracy --


#1763
Fame is a bee.
It has a song—
It has a sting—
Ah, too, it has a wing.


Dickinson used the bee, a favorite symbol of Isaac Watts's (author of Christian Psalmody, or, The Psalms), as a defiant counter-emblem to his hymns. Her bees are irresponsible (138, 1343), enjoy la dolce vita (1627), and are pictured as seducers, traitors, buccaneers (81, 128, 134, 206, etc.). See here