Change of pace

Okay, so the next 8 reading assignments are short stories.  There's no way I can read a short story in instalments, so I'll only be blogging twice a week for the next month, starting today.

And the rest of this week is kind of brutal, what with the first Grammar exam on Thursday, the Journalism class starting again on Thursday, my Calculus class taking their first exam on Friday, my first Translation presentation on Friday, and my first Photography assignment due on Saturday, so I'll probably not get back to the blog again before Saturday.
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6:45 p.m.  "The Last Speaker of the Language" by Carol Anshaw.  15 pages.

6:46 p.m.  Researched Five O'Clock Vodka on the internet.  Surprised I haven't heard of it before.  One of my teachers once said one of the best ways to get wasted was to not eat anything all day, drink one shot of vodka at 4 p.m., and then drink beer after beer---I wonder whether that's going to be relevant for this story.

6:50 p.m.  I like present tense narration  :)  It is vaguely reminiscent of Konjunktiv eins ...  where are the snows of yesteryear?

6:57 p.m.  First three pages introduced characters and set the scene, then conflict drops out of the blue sky on p. 4, but somehow manages to sound not abrupt.  I'm liking this  :)

7:01 p.m.  Especially that the montage method works so well!

7:04 p.m.  Spent a couple of minutes researching montage on the internet.  It turns out that there's a whole theory of it.  Will read up on it some day (Sunday?).

7:08 p.m.  What exactly would "Wicked" be?  No clue, but I didn't look up that one.

7:11 p.m.  Mood hurt by the word "excelsior", because it reminded me of the superlame movie from Saturday night.

7:12 p.m.  "Nuclear reactor."  Hitting me over the head with a symbol?

7:27 p.m.  Okay, beautiful story.  The only two things I didn't like were "excelsior" and "thirdhand cigarette smoke" ...  More on Saturday!

Great hiatus

So we got no new reading assignment today, which means there won't be another reading log before Monday.  We finally caught a break  :)  Have a great weekend, everyone!

The Last Hound of the Baskervilles

As in "The Last of the Mohicans", or in "Mao's Last Dancer", which is a beautiful movie my daughter and I watched earlier this month.  The last chapter  :)

And an update.---My Workshop met last evening, and for that reason I had to finally get my fifth poem written.  Now I need at least five more poems in the next five weeks  :(  I think I might do a new first draft every day for the next week or so, and then spend a month revising ... mal sehen.

But now to finish this book:
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6:08 p.m.  No language reset needed today, because, having spent the last 24 hours or so working on an English poem, I'm thinking in English already.

6:09 p.m.  Okay, so it's November, so this chapter should be flashback.

6:11 p.m.  Holmes "... would never permit cases to overlap."  I have had that experience when writing---I don't manage to work on multiple poems at the same time---but not while reading.  I read best when I'm in the middle of approx. four books, preferably in four different languages.

6:14 p.m.  Holmes says:  "... I cannot guarantee that I carry all the facts in my mind."  You mean like an unreliable narrator?  ;)

6:24 p.m.  Holmes says:  "... I am inclined to think that Stapleton's career of crime has been by no means limited to this single Baskerville affair."  Maybe Conan Doyle was indeed considering a new supervillain when he wrote this in 1902.

6:33 p.m.  Done  :)  More later!

Penultimate chapter

Opening thoughts:  We're almost done  :)
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10:21 p.m.  I Shot a Man in Reno

10:38 p.m.  Done.  So they never caught Stapleton.  I wonder whether this was because Conan Doyle was planning a sequel?  Or maybe even a new arch-villain, because he'd already killed off Moriarty in "The Final Problem"?

Last chapter tomorrow  :)

Snow day

My 4:30 p.m. class got cancelled because of the weather.  Now to make good use of the time (to get some work done):
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4:57 p.m.  Jon Kenny's crazy version of "Big Rock Candy Mountain"  :)

4:59 p.m.  The title of chapter 13, "Fixing the Nets", makes me think of the poem "The Purse-Seine" by Robinson Jeffers.

5:07 p.m.  The nets turn out to be a mixed metaphor.  First "... he will be fluttering in our net as helpless as one of his own butterflies," and then "... whether we have caught our big, lean-jawed pike, or whether he has got through the meshes."  Is it a butterfly net, or is it a fishing net?

5:18 p.m.  Done  :)  More tomorrow.

Text-starved

The reading assignment had only three chapters, and there were four days between classes  :(  There will be no reading log tomorrow.

Here's today's reading:
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10:35 p.m.  "I Want My Mullet Back.."  Ohne Scheiss  :)

10:38 p.m.  "12.  Death on the Moor":  14 pages.  Future chapters:  "13.  Fixing the Nets":  10 pages.  "14.  The Hound of the Baskervilles":  12 pages.  "15.  A Retrospection":  10 pages.  Starting to read now.

10:43 p.m.  What's with the tweed suits?  Sir Henry was wearing one when we first saw him, and now Holmes is wearing one.

10:46 p.m.  Holmes "... was so imprudent as to allow the moon to rise" (behind him)  :)

10:55 p.m.  Sir Henry's tweed suit is back, and is on Selden (to be specific, his corpse).  Conan Doyle might have been thinking about this when he started the chapter, and that might be why Holmes also dons a tweed suit.

11:07 p.m.  Done.  More on Monday  :)

Weekend

Reading log now.  Darkroom all night (the pressure's up because of what happened on Tuesday).  Reading log tomorrow.  Grading, Step paper, obituary draft, reading and response to the reading for the translation class.  Das nennt man heutzutage Weekend.

At least there's no new homework for the grammar class this weekend.
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3:56 p.m.  Language reset song:  Brenda Lee singing "Dankeschoen."

3:57 p.m.  "11.  The Man on the Tor" is 13 pages long.

3:57 p.m.  He repeats "The incidents ... are indelibly graven upon my recollection."  Last chapter's opening had:  "... are indelibly fixed in every detail upon my memory."

4:08 p.m.  What, exactly, should a "wagonette" be?

4:14 p.m.  Beautiful foreshadowing of discovering Holmes on the Tor:  "One great grey bird, a gull or curlew, soared aloft in the blue heaven."

4:19 p.m.  He again makes an effort to ensure that I (as the reader) doesn't commit myself:  "Was he our malignant enemy, or was he our guardian angel?"

4:21 p.m.  "... the west was blazing with scarlet and gold."  Reminds me of "The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold/And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold."

4:23 p.m.  Done!  More tomorrow.

Still epistolary

7:25 p.m.  Okay, so the last two chapters were letters, and this (10th) chapter's called "Extract from the Diary of Dr Watson."  10 pages of it.

7:27 p.m.  "The house is banked in with rolling clouds ..."  Verbs are God  :)  "... the distant boulders are gleaming when the light strikes upon their wet faces."

7:29 p.m.  I'll never finish if I get caught up in the diction.  Reading on.

7:31 p.m.  Conan Doyle keeps reminding the reader that the warning letter "... might have been the work of a protecting friend as easily as an enemy."  :)

7:39 p.m.  There seems to be a structure to the diary entries:  First describe the weather (in poetic terms), then the events (in chronological order).  Quote dialog, even though it's a diary entry.  Here's someone with 100 per cent recall of conversation (Truman Capote had 94 per cent recall).

7:43 p.m.  But Conan Doyle really pays a lot of attention to setting as well (in addition to paying attention to dialog).  The setting is where he has most of his metaphors (even though he doesn't use metaphors for much beyond creating atmosphere).

7:51 p.m.  Done.  I find it odd that the reader's not met Dr. Mortimer's wife yet.  Must be 19th century English custom or something.

Perfect art

A perfect murder is a murder that leaves no evidence.

Because what happens in the darkroom is art, the resulting prints are evidence of that art.

Last night in the darkroom was perfect art, as in:  It was art that left no evidence.  Not one acceptable print  :(  As a result, I'm tired (from staying up all night) and grumpy (because I've got nothing to show for it).

And yet I must keep the reading log, and even write the Step paper afterwards (and do a bunch of other things on top of that) before I sleep tonight, because tomorrow is Thursday  :(

Let me get the reading log done quickly:
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8:41 p.m.  Language reset song:  "Always True To You, Darling (In My Fashion)" on YouTube.

8:48 p.m.  The ninth chapter is 17 pages long  :(  I'm having a very bad day!

8:56 p.m.  I wonder why Stapleton asks for exactly three months.  That must have a reason (unlike the facts that yesterday's letter was written on a Sunday---and today's letter on Tuesday, October 15, 1889---apparently for no good reason).

9 p.m.  Beautiful metaphor:  ""It is something to have touched bottom anywhere in this bog in which we are floundering."

9:02 p.m.  Another one:  "And now I pass on to another thread which I have extricated out of the tangled skein ..."

9:05 p.m.  I can't help thinking how it was rather unkind (to me) of Conan Doyle that he decided to write both the love story as well as Selden's story in the same chapter.  That's what made the chapter so long  :(

9:13 p.m.  "... a thin rain began to fall."  Wie lange habe ich das nicht mehr gesehen!  :)

9:20 p.m.  'Phone call.

9:36 p.m.  Any interruptions really ruin my reading experience  :(  I'll go smoke before I start again.

9:52 p.m.  Resuming reading now.  Only two pages left, though  :)

9:57 p.m.  Done.  So much is still left to do before tomorrow's classes!  :(

Before the darkness

Later tonight:  A night out in the darkroom.  But first, today's reading log:
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8:34 p.m.  Language reset song:  "Courtin' in the Kitchen" by Dessie O'Halloran.  This one's a masterpiece  :)

8:38 p.m.  "8.  First Report of Dr. Watson" is just 7 pages long.  There is a God, and He loves me!  I'm starting now.

8:39 p.m.  Watson's letter is dated "Oct. 13th."  October 13, 1889 was a Sunday---I wonder whether England had mail sevice on Sundays at that time?

8:42 p.m.  Tried to research the above on the internet and gave up quickly.  Not enough time for that tonight.

8:54 p.m.  Done.  I read slowly and carefully to see whether it's relevant that the day is a Sunday, but it isn't relevant in this chapter.  Maybe that fact will become relevant later in the book?

More tomorrow.

Changes

First:  I really want to spread out the reading assignment better over the days between classes.  I didn't like it one bit that I read two chapters yesterday  :(

Second:  I showed Dr. Chesley my first three entries at the end of class today, and he said I could include more about what else I'm doing simultaneously with the reading, so I should probably try to stop reading in the shut-out-the-world mode (otherwise I'll end up never doing much of anything simultaneously with the reading).

So here's today's log.
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7:29 p.m.  On MTh afternoons, I have three English classes in a row.  No language reset song needed today.

7:30 p.m.  "7.  The Stapletons of Merripit house" is 14 pages long.  I wonder whether The Strand Magazine never imposed a length limit on Conan Doyle.

7:37 p.m. Researched above question on the web.  Didn't find the answer, but here's something interesting:   http://www.strandmag.com/hist.htm

7:38 p.m.  Will start reading after cigarette break.

7:48 p.m.  Found the page.  Starting.

8:17 p.m.  A student brought Math questions just as I was about to start.  I'll go smoke again, and start after that.

8:36 p.m.  Okay, starting now.

8:43 p.m.  "But then I remembered the pile of papers and bills with which his study table was littered."  That made me look at my own tables ...  Oh well, I'll clean some day  :)

8:51 p.m.  Too quiet.  "Dammit Janet" on YouTube.

9:01 p.m.  Done.  Net gain from reading this chapter:  The noun phrase "grass-grown path."  That's beautiful, so I should really stop being snobbish about the hyphens.

6. Baskerville Hall (10 pp.)

11:43 p.m.  "Cruel to be kind" on YouTube.

11:52 p.m.  Notable so far:  "wagonette"; description of nature with abrupt turn from sun/green/summer to yellow/fall and abrupt end with "Halloa"; "the Notting Hill murderer".

11:55 p.m.  And then "... the barren waste, the chilling wind, and the darkling sky."  Just like that.  From the sun/green/summer to this in just over one page.  This could have been set in the midwest  :)

11:57 p.m.  "Swan and Edison."  Yes, the book is that old  :)

Midnight      The hyphens are standing out again  :(  "weather-bitten", "Good-bye", "age-blackened", "old-fashioned", "log-fire", "coat-of-arms" ... is he doing this on purpose?

12:08 a.m.  Done.  Now for the Step paper.  More tomorrow.  I should have been a professional telegram writer.  Or telegram-writer---take your pick.

"Three Broken Threads"

That's the title of the next chapter.  Reading log:
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4:59 p.m.  Initial song to reset mental language to English:  "Everybody have fun tonight".  This particular video has a side effect of clearing the mind rather well  :)

5:01 p.m.  Found the page.  This is going to be 11 pages.

5:04 p.m.  The song is over.  Started reading.

5:12 p.m.  Probably because the book was serialized, there's a helpful one-paragraph recap of previous events at the bottom of p. 52  :)

5:17 p.m.  Done.  That was short  :)  Which is just as well, because I want to get done with all homework (another chapter and the Steps paper) tonight.  Interesting to learn that Sir Charles had made nearly a million British pounds in 1889 money in South Africa, because I have a friend who thinks the people of South Africa are mostly very poor.

5:22 p.m.  So a substantial break now to write something else  :) ... but I'll probably blog again when I read chapter 6 later tonight.

Of logs and reading

Now I know what a reading log is  :)  and I'm doing my first one here today.  And I have to keep a reading log for my Intro to Fiction class from now to March 25---this is not a fiction!---so that will be my blog for the next ten weeks or so.
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7:56 p.m. Wrote intro (above).  Decided to wait until "Achy breaky heart" (playing on YouTube) ends.

7:58 p.m.  Song over.  Checked the table of contents:  The fourth chapter of The Hound of the Baskervilles is 12 pages long (in my copy).

8:00 p.m.  I wish I had an estimate of how long that will take me to read.

8:01 p.m.  Found the page and started reading.

8:02 p.m.  Counted five hyphenated words in the first paragraph:  breakfast-table, dressing-gown, dark-eyed, ruddy-tinted, weather-beaten.  Wondered about "eye-brows" and "bear-ing" as well (those two are hyphenated at ends of lines).

8:06 p.m.  Where Doyle writes dialogue, the text reads like a play with the stage directions inadverently left out.

8:07 p.m.  It's hard to read without background music.  Started playing "Call Me Maybe" on YouTube.  Wondering whether anything I've read so far should be the gap I'd use for Monday's Step paper.

8:10 p.m.  Spotted wordplay:  Sir Henry says, "... I've heard of the hound ever since I was in the nursery.  It's the pet story of the family ..."  pet story  :)

8:11 p.m.  Internal front rhyme  :)  "We heard the steps of our visitors descend the stair and the bang of the front door.  In an instant Holmes had changed from the languid dreamer to the man of action."  bang/languid, plus their front eye rhyme with changed.

8:15 p.m.  But why "We heard the steps of our visitors descend the stair and the bang of the front door" and not "We heard the steps of our visitors descend the stair and the front door bang"?

8:28 p.m.  I give up.  I'll just read on.

8:34 p.m.  Done.  "A clever man upon so delicate an errand has no use for a beard save to conceal his features"---quote for McDaniel  :)  Cigarette break.

8:40 p.m.  Found possible explanation:  The parallelism works better when the second element is longer, as in "We heard the steps of our visitors descend the stair and the carved oaken front door open, then shut with a resounding bang that echoed back into the room" or something.  The door had to be the second element because the elements are ordered by time of occurrence, and is shorter in order to avoid unnecessary detail (as in the text), so it was probably better to leave out the parallelism.

8:49 p.m.  Also found a good reason to not start the next chapter right away:  The chapters were serialized in the monthly Strand Magazine, so I shouldn't read two chapters in a row if I want to approximate the experience of one of the original readers  :)  Will grade Math quizzes instead.  More later.

New major, new minor :)

Yesterday's depression---the feeling that I'm stagnating again---is starting to lift now, because I spent the morning declaring a Communication major and a Journalism minor.  While retaining the Writing minor that I'd already declared some time ago, of course.

Plus I picked up my new lenses this morning---the old ones had cracked at the climax of the road trip---so I'm no longer seeing the world through crack-colored glasses now  :)

Okay, time to get back to homework.  I don't want to already fall behind in the first week of the semester.  Here's what I'm reading today:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Case_of_Identity,
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Red-Headed_League, and
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Final_Problem.

Anticlimax

Out of paper, also almost out of chemicals, no darkroom today  :(  And the supplies won't even show up till Friday ...

Which is probably just as well, because, two days into the semester, I'm already depressed and sleep-deprived.

Dr. Pichot's translation class met today.  Because of that, and also because I have no reading log as yet, I'm posting a translation.  Here's the original (including a reading of the poem by the poet herself), here's an English translation, here's a French translation, here's a Swedish translation, here's a Norwegian translation.

Here's another English translation from this book.
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sibyl---poem in eight syllables

By Anja Utler

                                        Сивилла: выжжена, сивилла: ствол.
                                        Все птицы вымерли, но Бог вошел.

                                        Sibyl:  in cinders, Sibyl:  a trunk.
                                        The birds incinerate, but God has come.

                                                                                         Marina Tsvetaeva

has touched the:  grains, with her naked eye:  naked mouth en-
kindled, sibyl, she shudders, she glows:  the sand singes the finger
tips tongue it strikes sparks in the body:  flares up

*

she:  staggers, sibyl, struck down to:  the sand falls she, streams
---myriads of pores---blasts through flashes through sibyl the sun---turns:
sunstorm---she murmurs she spits, knows:  it no longer sets

*

has:  burst open, sibyl, the:  splinter in flesh is she---bleeding still?---
tinders---is severed, she gapes:  like the lips, stump---is lamella, lignified
slices:  the light, drips:  she screeches, it:  springs forth

*

sibyl so:  yawns so she, sighs:  vocal lips, folds they:  swing they
scrape:  off over limestone, they scrub, rip a:  crater from
basin to gullet the:  voicecleft, so sibyl, she:  oscillates, shakes

*

shaken:  the quaking is, sibyl---shock---lurches:  in sand eddies
air eddies gnashes she throws out:  her joint buckles, wails so she:  pines
wastes away to:  spit, sand bar she---oscillates:  uprooted jaw---she:  erodes

*

sibyl she:  towers up, turns to:  cliffs hisses is:  spindrift glows out in the
pores sprays out:  sibilants, goes out -sss- ebbs
surges swells and:  suspires

*
sibyl her:  head swims, she:  breaks in the swirling heat:  whispers,
she whirs:  sump, slough slick thighs the:  reed belt she wets she en-
girds herself tongues gurgles---adder---she slips off and:  sisses

*
*

and still.  just the scent:  fire site clearing to hear---once
a rustling---and spoilage:  toes finger the stump:
fungus hollow, they probe cast-off skin:  it breaks down
on the scaled soles and:  crackles out

First day of classes

Am, for all practical purposes, dead.  As expected.

Okay, about the blog:  Having kept the blog for over 4 months now, I'm really reluctant to, in modern parlance, shut it.  I learnt that I'll have to keep a reading log for my Intro to Fiction class with Dr. Chesley  this semester---we're reading the Hound of the Baskervilles for that class right now, and we'll find out in class on Thursday what exactly "a reading log" should be---so I think I'll just post my reading log (whatever that may turn out to be) as my blog during the semester.  That way, the blog will still exist for at least another 4 months  :)

I'm also planning to work steadily all semester on the photography this time (so I won't have to die in the darkroom during Finals Week), so I probably won't write the blog tomorrow, but I will write again later this week  :)

End of story?

So this could be it for the blog.  Tomorrow, after back-to-back classes from 10:50 AM--5:45 PM, I'll have to decide, while keeping office hours from 6--7:15 PM, whether to continue the blog at all ... even if I do, it will certainly become much more irregular.

So, even though it's the middle of a middle-of-winter afternoon, here's Puck's closing monologue from Midsummer Night's Dream:
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From A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 5, Scene 1

By William Shakespeare

If we shadows have offended,

Think but this, and all is mended,

That you have but slumber'd here

While these visions did appear.

And this weak and idle theme,

No more yielding but a dream,

Gentles, do not reprehend:

if you pardon, we will mend:

And, as I am an honest Puck,

If we have unearned luck

Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,

We will make amends ere long;

Else the Puck a liar call;

So, good night unto you all.

Give me your hands, if we be friends,

And Robin shall restore amends.

Twelfth night

It's January 5.  School as usual on Monday  :(

At least we'll find out whether I can still keep a blog when it isn't required and I'm carrying full loads of classes.

Meanwhile, here's the exchange between Olivia and Viola (who is dressed as a man)  from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night (or, What You Will):
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From Twelfth Night or, What You Will, Act 1, Scene 5

By William Shakespeare

OLIVIA.

Give me my veil; come, throw it o'er my face;

We'll once more hear Orsino's embassy.

[Enter VIOLA, and ATTENDANTS.]

VIOLA.

The honourable lady of the house, which is she?

OLIVIA.

Speak to me; I shall answer for her. Your will?

VIOLA.

Most radiant, exquisite, and unmatchable beauty,— I pray you, tell me if this be the lady of the house, for I never saw her:  I would be loth to cast away my speech; for, besides that it is excellently well penn'd, I have taken great pains to con it. Good beauties, let me sustain no scorn; I am very comptible, even to the least sinister usage.

OLIVIA.

Whence came you, sir?

VIOLA.

I can say little more than I have studied, and that question's out of my part. Good gentle one, give me modest assurance if you be the lady of the house, that I may proceed in my speech.

OLIVIA.

Are you a comedian?

VIOLA.

No, my profound heart; and yet, by the very fangs of malice I swear, I am not that I play. Are you the lady of the house?

OLIVIA.

If I do not usurp myself, I am.

VIOLA.

Most certain, if you are she, you do usurp yourself; for what is yours to bestow is not yours to reserve. But this is from my commission. I will on with my speech in your praise, and then show you the heart of my message.

OLIVIA.

Come to what is important in't; I forgive you the praise.

VIOLA.

Alas, I took great pains to study it, and 't is poetical.

OLIVIA.

It is the more like to be feign'd; I pray you, keep it in. I heard you were saucy at my gates, and allow'd your approach rather to wonder at you than to hear you. If you be not mad, be gone; if you have reason, be brief; 't is not that time of moon with me to make one in so skipping a dialogue.

MARIA.

Will you hoist sail, sir? here lies your way.

VIOLA.

No, good swabber; I am to hull here a little longer. Some mollification for your giant, sweet lady. Tell me your mind; I am a messenger.

OLIVIA.

Sure, you have some hideous matter to deliver, when the courtesy of it is so fearful. Speak your office.

VIOLA.

It alone concerns your ear. I bring no overture of war, no taxation of homage: I hold the olive in my hand; my words are as full of peace as matter.

OLIVIA.

Yet you began rudely. What are you? what would you?

VIOLA.

The rudeness that hath appear'd in me have I learn'd from my entertainment. What I am, and what I would, are as secret as maidenhead; to your ears, divinity; to any other's, profanation.

OLIVIA.

Give us the place alone; we will hear this divinity.

[Exeunt MARIA and ATTENDANTS.]

Now, sir, what is your text?

VIOLA.

Most sweet lady,—

OLIVIA.

A comfortable doctrine, and much may be said of it. Where lies your text?

VIOLA.

In Orsino's bosom.

OLIVIA.

In his bosom! In what chapter of his bosom?

VIOLA.

To answer by the method, in the first of his heart.

OLIVIA.

O, I have read it; it is heresy. Have you no more to say?

VIOLA.

Good madam, let me see your face.

OLIVIA.

Have you any commission from your lord to negotiate with my face? You are now out of your text; but we will draw the curtain, and show you the picture. Look you, sir, such a one I was this present; is 't not well done?

[Unveiling.]

VIOLA.

Excellently done, if God did all.

OLIVIA.

'T is in grain, sir; 't will endure wind and weather.

VIOLA.

'T is beauty truly blent whose red and white

Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on.

Lady, you are the cruell'st she alive,

If you will lead these graces to the grave,

And leave the world no copy.

OLIVIA.

O, sir, I will not be so hard-hearted; I will give out divers schedules of my beauty. It shall be inventoried, and every particle and utensil labell'd to my will: as, item, two lips, indifferent red; item, two grey eyes, with lids to them; item, one neck, one chin, and so forth. Were you sent hither to praise me?

VIOLA.

I see you what you are, you are too proud;

But, if you were the devil, you are fair.

My lord and master loves you; O, such love

Could be but recompens'd, though you were crown'd

The nonpareil of beauty!

OLIVIA.

How does he love me?

VIOLA.

With adorations, fertile tears,

With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire.

OLIVIA.

Your lord does know my mind; I cannot love him:

Yet I suppose him virtuous, know him noble,

Of great estate, of fresh and stainless youth;

In voices well divulg'd, free, learn'd, and valiant;

And, in dimension and the shape of nature,

A gracious person: but yet I cannot love him;

He might have took his answer long ago.

VIOLA.

If I did love you in my master's flame,

With such a suffering, such a deadly life,

In your denial I would find no sense;

I would not understand it.

OLIVIA.

Why, what would you?

VIOLA.

Make me a willow cabin at your gate,

And call upon my soul within the house;

Write loyal cantons of contemned love,

And sing them loud even in the dead of night;

Halloo your name to the reverberate hills,

And make the babbling gossip of the air

Cry out, 'Olivia!' O, you should not rest

Between the elements of air and earth,

But you should pity me!

OLIVIA.

You might do much. What is your parentage?

VIOLA.

Above my fortunes, yet my state is well;

I am a gentleman.

OLIVIA.

Get you to your lord;

I cannot love him: let him send no more;

Unless, perchance, you come to me again,

To tell me how he takes it. Fare you well;

I thank you for your pains. Spend this for me.

VIOLA.

I am no fee'd post, lady; keep your purse:

My master, not myself, lacks recompense.

Love make his heart of flint that you shall love;

And let your fervour, like my master's, be

Plac'd in contempt! Farewell, fair cruelty.

[Exit.]

OLIVIA.

'What is your parentage?'

'Above my fortunes, yet my state is well;

I am a gentleman.' I'll be sworn thou art;

Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions, and spirit,

Do give thee five-fold blazon. Not too fast! Soft, soft!

Unless the master were the man. How now!

Even so quickly may one catch the plague?

Methinks I feel this youth's perfections

With an invisible and subtle stealth

To creep in at mine eyes. Well, let it be.

What ho, Malvolio!

[Re-enter MALVOLIO.]

MALVOLIO.

Here, madam, at your service.

OLIVIA.

Run after that same peevish messenger,

The county's man: he left this ring behind him,

Would I or not; tell him I'll none of it.

Desire him not to flatter with his lord,

Nor hold him up with hopes; I am not for him.

If that the youth will come this way to-morrow,

I'll give him reasons for't. Hie thee, Malvolio.

MALVOLIO.

Madam, I will.

[Exit.]

OLIVIA.

I do I know not what; and fear to find

Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind.

Fate, show thy force: ourselves we do not owe;

What is decreed must be, and be this so!

Pursued by a bear

The vacation is over now  :(  and it ended in such a hurry, as though it were being chased by a bear!  And I'm still working on only my fourth poem (I need 10 to 12 poems by the end of February in order to apply to Iowa again this year)  :(

Looking for lighter thought, I came up with this part from "Winter's Tale":
___________________________

From Winter’s Tale, Act 4, Scene 4

By William Shakespeare

[Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing.]

AUTOLYCUS.

Lawn as white as driven snow;

Cypress black as e'er was crow;

Gloves as sweet as damask-roses;

Masks for faces and for noses;

Bugle-bracelet, necklace amber,

Perfume for a lady's chamber;

Golden quoifs and stomachers,

For my lads to give their dears;

Pins and poking-sticks of steel,

What maids lack from head to heel.

Come, buy of me, come; come buy, come buy;

Buy, lads, or else your lasses cry:

Come, buy.

CLOWN.

If I were not in love with Mopsa, thou shouldst take no

money of me; but being enthralled as I am, it will also be the

bondage of certain ribbons and gloves.

MOPSA.

I was promis'd them against the feast; but they come not too

late now.

DORCAS.

He hath promised you more than that, or there be liars.

MOPSA.

He hath paid you all he promised you: may be he has paid you

more,—which will shame you to give him again.

CLOWN.

Is there no manners left among maids? will they wear their

plackets where they should bear their faces? Is there not

milking-time, when you are going to bed, or kiln-hole, to whistle

off these secrets, but you must be tittle-tattling before all our

guests? 'tis well they are whispering. Clamour your tongues, and

not a word more.

MOPSA.

I have done. Come, you promised me a tawdry lace, and a pair

of sweet gloves.

CLOWN.

Have I not told thee how I was cozened by the way, and lost

all my money?

AUTOLYCUS.

And indeed, sir, there are cozeners abroad; therefore it

behoves men to be wary.

CLOWN.

Fear not thou, man; thou shalt lose nothing here.

AUTOLYCUS.

I hope so, sir; for I have about me many parcels of charge.

CLOWN.

What hast here? ballads?

MOPSA.

Pray now, buy some: I love a ballad in print a-life; for

then we are sure they are true.

AUTOLYCUS.

Here's one to a very doleful tune. How a usurer's wife

was brought to bed of twenty money-bags at a burden, and how she

long'd to eat adders' heads and toads carbonadoed.

MOPSA.

Is it true, think you?

AUTOLYCUS.

Very true; and but a month old.

DORCAS.

Bless me from marrying a usurer!

AUTOLYCUS.

Here's the midwife's name to't, one Mistress Taleporter,

and five or six honest wives that were present. Why should I

carry lies abroad?

MOPSA.

Pray you now, buy it.

CLOWN.

Come on, lay it by; and let's first see more ballads; we'll

buy the other things anon.

AUTOLYCUS.

Here's another ballad, of a fish that appeared upon the

coast on Wednesday the fourscore of April, forty thousand fathom

above water, and sung this ballad against the hard hearts of

maids: it was thought she was a woman, and was turned into a cold

fish for she would not exchange flesh with one that loved her.

The ballad is very pitiful, and as true.

DORCAS.

Is it true too, think you?

AUTOLYCUS.

Five justices' hands at it; and witnesses more than my pack will

hold.

CLOWN.

Lay it by too: another.

AUTOLYCUS.

This is a merry ballad; but a very pretty one.

MOPSA.

Let's have some merry ones.

AUTOLYCUS.

Why, this is a passing merry one, and goes to the tune of 'Two

maids wooing a man.' There's scarce a maid westward but she sings

it: 'tis in request, I can tell you.

MOPSA.

We can both sing it: if thou'lt bear a part thou shalt hear; 'tis in

three parts.

DORCAS.

We had the tune on't a month ago.

AUTOLYCUS.

I can bear my part; you must know 'tis my occupation: have at it

with you.

[SONG.]

AUTOLYCUS.

Get you hence, for I must go

Where it fits not you to know.

DORCAS.

Whither?

MOPSA.

O, whither?

DORCAS.

Whither?

MOPSA.

It becomes thy oath full well

Thou to me thy secrets tell.

DORCAS.

Me too! Let me go thither.

MOPSA.

Or thou goest to the grange or mill:

DORCAS.

If to either, thou dost ill.

AUTOLYCUS.

Neither.

DORCAS.

What, neither?

AUTOLYCUS.

Neither.

DORCAS.

Thou hast sworn my love to be;

MOPSA.

Thou hast sworn it more to me;

Then whither goest?—say, whither?

CLOWN.

We'll have this song out anon by ourselves; my father and the

gentlemen are in sad talk, and we'll not trouble them.—Come,

bring away thy pack after me.—Wenches, I'll buy for you both:—

Pedlar, let's have the first choice.—Follow me, girls.

[Exit with DORCAS and MOPSA.]

AUTOLYCUS.

[Aside.]

And you shall pay well for 'em.

Will you buy any tape,

Or lace for your cape,

My dainty duck, my dear-a?

Any silk, any thread,

Any toys for your head,

Of the new'st and fin'st, fin'st wear-a?

Come to the pedlar;

Money's a meddler

That doth utter all men's ware-a.

[Exeunt CLOWN, AUT., DOR., and MOP.]