The Invention of Solitude

in heaven!
    Soon shall their sail be spread, and in their hands
    The strong oar quivering cleave the refluent wave;
    While songs, and hymns, and carols jubilant
    Shall charm the rosy God, to whom shall rise,
    Rife from Apollo ’ s Delphic shrine, the smoke
    Of numerous holocausts: Well pleased shall hear
    Enorches, where the high-hung taper ’ s light
    Gleams on his dread carousals, and when forth
    The Savage rushes on the corny field
    Mad to destroy, shall bid his vines entwist
    His sinewy strength, and hurl them to the ground.
    *

    line 426 … then Greece
    For this one crime, aye for this one, shall weep
    Myriads of sons: no funeral urn, but rocks
    Shall hearse their bones; no friends upon their dust
    Shall pour the dark libations of the dead;
    A name, a breath, an empty sound remains,
    A fruitless marble warm with bitter tears
    Of sires, and orphan babes, and widowed wives!

    *
    line 1686… Why pour the fruitless strain?
    to winds, and waves,
    Deaf winds, dull waves, and senseless shades of woods
    I chaunt, and sing mine unavailing song.
    Such woes has Lepsieus heaped upon my head,
    Steeping my words in incredulity;
    The jealous God! for from my virgin couch
    I drove him amorous, nor returned his love.
    But fate is in my voice, truth on my lips;
    What must come, will come; and when rising woes
    Burst on his head, when rushing from her seat
    His country falls, nor man nor God can save,
    Some wretch shall groan, “ From her no falsehood
    flowed, True were the shrieks of that ill-omened bird. ”

    It intrigues A. to consider that both Royston and Q. had translated this work while still in their early twenties. In spite of the century and a half that separated them, each had given some special force to his own language through the medium of this poem. At one point, it occurred to him that perhaps Q. was a reincarnation of Royston. Every hundred years or so Royston would be reborn to translate the poem into another language, and just as Cassandra was destined never to be believed, the work of Lycophron would re main unread, generation after generation. A useless task therefore: to write a book that would stay forever closed. And still, the image rises up in his mind: shipwreck. Consciousness falling to the bottom of the sea, and the horrible noise of cracking wood, the tall masts tumbling into the waves. To imagine Royston ’ s thoughts the moment his body smacked against the water. To imagine the havoc of that death.

The Book of Memory. Book Eight.
    By the time of his third birthday, A. ‘ s son ’ s taste in literature had begun to expand from simple, heavily illustrated baby books to more sophisticated children ’ s books. The illustration was still a source of great pleasure, but it was no longer crucial. The story itself had become enough to hold his attention, and when A. came to a page with no picture at all, he would be moved to see the little boy looking intently ahead, at nothing, at the emptiness of the air, at the blank wall, imagining what the words were telling him. “ It ’ s fun to imagine that we can ’ t see, ” he told his father once, as they were walking down the street. Another time, the boy went into the bathroom, closed the door, and did not come out. A. asked through the closed door: “ What are you doing in there? ” “ I ’ m thinking, ” the boy said. “ I have to be alone to think. ”
    Little by little, they both began to gravitate towards one book. The story of Pinocchio. First in the Disney version, and then, soon after, in the original version, with text by Collodi and illustrations by Mussino. The little boy never tired of hearing the chapter about the storm at sea, which tells of how Pinocchio finds Gepetto in the belly of the Terrible Sha rk. “ Oh, Father, dear Father! Have I found you at last? Now I shall never, never leave you again! ”
    Gepetto explains: “ The sea was rough and the whitecaps overturned the boat. Then a Terrible Shark came up out of the sea and, as soon as he saw me in the water, swam quickly toward me, put out his tongue, and swallowed me as easily as if I had been a chocolate peppermint. ”
    “ And how long have you been shut away in here? ”
    “ From that day to this, two long weary years—two years, my Pinocchio…”
    “ And how have you lived? Where did you find the candle? And the matches to light it with—where did you get them? ”
    “ In the storm which swamped my boat, a large ship also suffered the same fate. The