11/8/11

"Come live with me, and be my love;             

And we will all the pleasures prove

That hills and valleys, dales and fields,

Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks, 

Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks 

By shallow rivers, to whose falls 

Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses 

And a thousand fragrant posies; 

A cap of flowers, and a kirtle 

Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool 

Which from our pretty lambs we pull; 

Fair-lined slippers for the cold, 

With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy-buds, 

With coral clasps and amber-studs: 

And if these pleasures may thee move, 

Come live with me, and be my love.

The shepherd-swains shall dance and sing 

For thy delight each May-morning: 

If these delights thy mind may move, 

Then live with me and be my love."

This poem is found in the England's Helicon written by: Christopher Marlowe. The poem is called: The Passionate Shepherd to his Love.

Nicholas reads this poem after finding out that Alison had killed herself. Nicholas seems a little upset by Alison's death but at the same time I felt like he seemed a little relieved that she was gone and he didn't have to deal with her anymore. The news of Alison's death was kind of shocking. She didn't seem like the type of girl that would care about being turned down by a guy. 

I liked how Nicholas chose to read this poem after hearing about Alison. It kind of relates to the last experiences that the two of them had together. When they hiked the mountain, sat at the top of it, saw the shepherd with his sheep and swam in a pool with a waterfall. 

Class Notes:

• The end is always frustrating
• The tibetan book of the dead is a book about the rituals humans have to perform to get to the land of the dead.
• The Swerve- Written by Stephen Greenblatt
• The book is about a man that finds the last surviving manuscript of an ancient Roman philosophical epic, On the Nature of Things by Lucretius, in a library. The man that found the book ordered it to be copied. The manuscript was a poem talking about the idea that the universe functions without the help of the gods, that the religious fear was damaging to human life. Also that matter was made of small particles in eternal motion, colliding and swerving in different directions. The manuscript described the way things were, it was the creation of the modern world.

• Death is a problem fro the family. The world will not concern the person anymore, the spirit of the dead will return back to where it came from.
• All of life is a preparation for death.
• Read: The Movement of Death as Described by the Upanishads found in the Eliade book.
• Myths help us realize what we are supposed to do when a person dies.

• Eschatology- last of final events of the history of the world or of humankind; a belief concerning death, the end of the world or the ultimate destiny of humankind
• Metempsychosis- the soul can never be destroyed or killed
• Parabola- quarterly print magazine about the study of the myths, rituals, symbols and arts of the worlds spiritual traditions; the story which is told to illustrate a certain point and deconstructs the point which is wanted to be known
• The transmigration of the soul- Eliada
• The person you thought would help you in a time of need didn't. This is the side of the parabola: the attack on the structure of your expectations

• Gasang Ist Dasein- song is existance

• The Story of the Ant and the Grasshopper

• We are here in order to see, hear and say things. The grasshopper enjoyed the summer and played the fiddle rather than preparing for winter. The ant gathered food for winter all summer and had no fun. The moral of the story is hard work and foresight. The ant prepared for winter and once winter came, the ant was prepared and the grasshopper had fun. But what is life really about? Having fun and enjoying life or is it all about working and suffering to gain something in the end? What should life really be about? 
• Cicada
• The muses taught humans how to sing. The people learned how to sing and sung forever and forgot to eat, drink and sleep. They died from this and the god turned them into bugs so they could sing always and forever.