Category Archives: verse and worse

from the Vita Nuova of Dante

Here is a poem from Dante’s Vita Nuova (xix, 31-36). I originally translated it for my book-in-progress that I’m calling Ethics from Fiction: Philosophy and Literature in Dante and Modern Times. I recently deleted this particular poem from the manuscript because I decided it was a digression. I don’t actually like it all that much, and I’m not sure that Dante did, either. Ever since Mark Musa’s Dante’s Vita Nuova: A Translation and an Essay (Bloomington, 1973), some have interpreted the Vita Nuova as Dante’s self-critique. His main problem is that he doesn’t know the object of his love poems, Beatrice, so his poems are self-indulgent. Here he uses the theme of the “Lady Passes” to praise a woman who is a distant figure him:

My lady is desired in highest heaven

And I want you to discern her virtue too.

If you’d seem a noble lady, I say: Go,

Walk with her as she passes through the streets,

For into villainous hearts Love drives ice,

And all thoughts freeze until they perish;

And anyone who dares remain and watch

Must become a noble thing, or else he dies.

It is better in Italian–click below.

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bloggerel

To bleg is to beg on your blog, your blog.
A blog made of movies: a vlog.
To twitter’s to text folks your latest post;
A flog is a blog by a corporate ghost.
A blath is on math; a blawg covers law;
A troll will pounce on your teeniest flaw.
An attorney whose mind is a fog
Should post his bleg on a blawg web log.
To clog a blog, you jam it with spam:
Just ping that thing a link to your scam.
The blogosphere, it’s got it all:
Rolls and blolls and folderol.
Post anything on yours–it’s fine;
Just don’t forget to link to mine.
Quotes and lies, it all is free;
Just don’t forget to link to me.

(If you think I made any of this up, click here.)

come with me

Oh, come with me and be my love,
For Saturday night–that’s enough.
Next week, I’ve got a paper due,
A service gig, an interview too.
“Come with me”: remember, from our course?
(Also a pun, which I’d better not force.)
Yes, I deleted “live”–but you can stay
‘Til ten. Then I’ll work on my résumé.
Slippers and buckles of the finest gold:
One day you’ll have those, and someone to hold.
But I’m by myself now; the market’s tight;
For now, I’ve got to focus, network, fight.
Wait ’til we’re forty, and then maybe
You can be my love and live with me.

[For ease of reference, here’s the Marlowe original and previous replies by Walter Ralegh, C. Day Lewis, William Carlos Williams, and Odgen Nash.]

a palindrome*

America, you Jerusalem reborn!
No profligate, old-world, ruined people, you.
Behold: peace. You’re principle without pain and dishonor.
Dishonor and pain without principle: your peace.
Behold, you people: ruined world!
Old, profligate. No reborn Jerusalem you, America.

*Distantly inspired by Yehuda Alharizi’s “Palindrome for a Patron” [12th or 13th century] as translated by Peter Cole and cited by Harold Bloom in the June 28 New York Review of Books.

The secret thoughts of a Maryland School of Public Policy prof

No wonk has ever won a vote, yet we’re the ones who rule.
For us, the whole of Washington’s become a kind of school.
The politicos are our students; they show up from the sticks
With shiny smiles, fancy suits, and campaign-finance tricks.
But when we talk cost/benefit, chi-squared, or Freddie Mac,
Their brains feel slow, their spirits, low; their mouths look kinda slack.
“You profs,” they drawl, “it seems y’all know exactly what to do.
You write the bill, just as you will, and tell us when you’re through.”
In College Park, we’ve students, too; they’re the ones who pay us.
But they don’t exactly have the clout to make us into playahs.
That’s why we love the World Bank, C-SPAN, or a think tank,
Anywhere that cameras roll and the offices are swank.
Civic engagement? Sounds like a drag.
Public deliberation? Don’t make me gag.
A populist revolt? Not in our time.
The people only care about celebrities and crime.
Youth are dumb and selfish, but that’s really no surprise.
Their parents can’t detect the most patronizing lies.
Voting’s overrated: I’ve hardly ever done it.
As for the government, who’d really want to run it?
And while I’m getting all of this off my panting chest,
What about the folks who think that Maryland’s the best?
Please, a Terp is a turtle with his head up in his … shell.
Against a Blue Devil, he’s got a snowball’s chance in hell.
The Terps are meek, the ozone’s weak, our troops are up a creek.
Philosophy’s obsolescent and the future’s looking bleak.
Net intelligence is constant, but the population keeps on growing.
We’re out of cash, ideas, and friends, but the mess is still ongoing.
The end is near, I sadly fear, for planet, country, school.
But I get paid for opinions, so my future’s looking cool!