"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
Pages
▼
Sunday, April 12, 2026
Beauty
Goethe (1749-1832), "The Four Seasons," couplet 35 (tr. David Luke):
Beauty asked: 'Why must I perish, oh Zeus?' 'Why, I gave beauty', answered the god, 'only to perishable things.'
Warum bin ich vergänglich, o Zeus? so fragte die Schönheit.
Macht' ich doch, sagte der Gott, nur das Vergängliche schön.