^[1] "Men think they're heroes—again just like children. Men love war, hunting, fishing, motorbikes, cars, just like children. When they're sleepy you can see it. And women like men to be like that. We mustn't fool ourselves. We like men to be innocent and cruel; we like hunters and warriors; we like children." Duras again, as translated by Barbara Bray, p. 51. — Ed.

^[1] "Ashes were already falling, not as yet very thickly. I looked round: a dense black cloud was coming up behind us, spreading over the earth like a flood. 'Let us leave the road while we can still see,' I said, 'or we shall be knocked down and trampled underfoot in the dark by the crowd behind.' We had scarcely sat down to rest when darkness fell, not the dark of a moonless or cloudy night, but as if the lamp had been put out in a closed room." As translated by Betty Radice, Pliny: Letters and Panegyricus, Volume 1 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1969), p. 445. — Ed.

The Mother of the Muses, we are taught, Is Memory: she has left me.

Walter Savage Landor "Memory"

Far off from these a slow and silent stream, Lethe the River of Oblivion rolls Her wat'ry Labyrinth, whereof who drinks, Forthwith his former state and being forgets, Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain.

Paradise Lost again

The comets

Have such a space to cross,

Such coldness, forgetfulness. So your gestures flake off —

Warm and human, then their pink light Bleeding and peeling

Through the black amnesias of heaven.

Sylvia Plath "The Night Dances"

Gilgamesh listened and his tears flowed. He opened his mouth and spoke to Enkidu: "Who is there in strong-walled Uruk who has wisdom like this? Strange things have been spoken, why does your heart speak strangely? The dream was marvelous but the terror was great; we must treasure the dream whatever the terror; for the dream has shown that misery comes at last to the healthy man, the end of life is sorrow. . ."

Again The Epic of Gilgamesh

I am missing innumerable shades—they were so fine, so difficult to render in colourless words.

Joseph Teodor Korzeniowski Lord Jim

Hige sceal be heardra, heorte \t cenre,

mod sceal pe mare, }e ure maegen lytlaS [219]

The Battle of Maldon

I wished to show that space-time is not necessarily something to which one can ascribe a separate existence, independently of the actual objects of physical reality. Physical objects are not in space, but these objects are spatially extended. In this way the concept of "empty space" loses its meaning.

Albert Einstein

"Note to the Fifteenth Edition" Relativity: The Special and General Theory

Let us space.

Jacques Derrida Glas

L 'odeur du silence est si vieille. ⁴⁴ *

O. W. De L. Milosz

For all the voice in answer he could wake Was but the mocking echo of his own From some tree-hidden cliff across the lake. Some morning from the boulder-broken beach He would cry out on life, that what it wants Is not its own love back in copy speech, But counter-love, original response.

And then in the far-distant water splashed, But after a time allowed for it to swim, Instead of proving human when it neared And someone else additional to him, As a great buck it powerfully appeared, Pushing the crumpled water up ahead . . .

Robert Frost "The Most of It"

All that I have said and done, Now that I am old and ill, Turns into a question till I lie awake night after night And never get the answers right. Did that play of mind send out Certain men the English shot? Did words of mine put too great strain On that woman's reeling brain? Could my spoken words have checked That whereby a house lay wrecked?

William Butler Yeats "Man and the Echo"

Have not we too?—yes, we have Answers, and we know not whence; Echoes from beyond the grave, Recognised intelligence!

Such rebounds our inward ear Catches sometimes from afar — Listen, ponder, hold them dear; For of God,—of God they are.

William Wordsworth "Yes, It Was the Mountain Echo"

"Love should be put into action!"

screamed the old hermit. Across the pond an echo

tried and tried to confirm it.

Elizabeth Bishop "Chemin de Fer"

When I came back from death

it was morning

the back door was open

and one of the buttons of my shirt had

disappeared.

Derick Thomson Return from Death

Thou Echo, thou art mortal, all men know.

Echo. No.

Wert thou not bom among the trees and leaves?

Echo. Leaves.

And are there any leaves, that still abide?

Echo. Bide.

What leaves are they? impart the matter wholly.

Echo. Holy.

Are holy leaves the Echo then of blisse?

Echo. Yes.

Then tell me, what is that supreme delight? Echo. Light.

George Herbert "Heaven"

L 'amour n 'est pas consolation, il est lumiere. [220]

Simone Weil Cahier VI (K6)