Billy Budd, Sailor
Where Next?
Bob Williams
Sun 6 Feb 2011 01:13
Wind: East, F3 Gentle breeze
Weather: Mostly cloudy, sunny periods, occasional showers, warm
*
I had been hoping to get some maintenance done while loitering in the
Marquesas but unfortunately the regular showers make it seem that such hopes
are vain. Enjoying some Melville instead, currently reading Billy Budd,
Sailor. I had read it a long time ago to the point of having forgotten it.
It was in fact his last bit of writing and it is pleasing to note that here
he seems to recapture some of his past brilliance. He just seems to be
enjoying himself, and I cannot help but laugh as I he runs away with
himself:
"In this matter of writing, resolve as one may to keep the main road some
bypaths have an enticement not readily to be withstood. I am going to err
into such a bypath. If the reader will keep me company I shall be glad. At
the least, we can promise ourselves that pleasure which is wickedly said to
be in sinning, for a literary sin the divergence will be."
..
"At Trafalgar Nelson on the brink of opening the fight sat down and wrote
his last brief will and testament. If under the presentiment of the most
magnificent of all victories to be crowned by his own glorious death, a sort
of priestly motive led him to dress his person in the jewelled vouchers of
his own shining deeds; if thus to have adorned himself for the alter and the
sacrifice were indeed vainglory, then affectation and fustian is each more
heroic line in the great epics and dramas, since in such lines the poet
embodies in verse those exaltations of sentiment that a nature like Nelson,
the opportunity being given, vitalizes into acts."
It strikes me as a little ironic (now why does Alison Morissette spring to
mind?) that Melville writes this passage so shortly before his own death,
instead of bedecking himself in shining medals he wraps himself up in
writing one last gleaming work of art.
"Hay muchas mujeres que navegan por amor al hombre pero sólo pocas navegan
por amor al mar."
It is indeed beautiful here, but for now my soul shuns the verdant beauty of
this place and craves rather a dark, sulphurous Stygian hole into which to
crawl, to beat its breast and wail like a wounded animal.
Just found a pretty song to balance out this small bout of depression:
**
Waiting On An Angel, Ben Harper
*
Waiting for an angel
One to carry me home
Hope you'll come see me soon
'cause I don't want to go alone
I don't want to go alone
*
Now angel won't you come right in
Angel hear my plea
Take my hand, lift me up
So that I can fly with thee
So that I can fly with thee
*
And I am waiting for an angel
And I know it won't be long
To find myself a resting place
In my angel's arms
My angel's arms
*
So speak kind to a stranger
'cause you'll never know
It just might be an angel come
For knocking at your door
Come knocking at your door
*
And I am waiting for an angel
And I know it won't be long
To find myself a resting place
In my angel's arms oh
In my angel's arms
*
Waiting on an angel
One to carry me home
Hope you'll come see me soon
Because I don't want to go alone
I don't want to go alone
Don't want to go
I don't want to go alone.
***
All is well.