When suddenly there is heard at midnight
A company passing invisible
With wonderful music, with voices, -
Your fortune giving way now, your works
Which have failed, the plans of a lifetime
All turned illusions …
—Constantinos P. Cavafy
You might have to be alert to notice that Maureen Dowd today did what the Gods did to
She’s picked on Hillary before but she picks on almost everybody so there’s nothing to be made of that. Today, I think, is different.
She opens with an all-purpose snark: “It’s not yet clear which prejudice will infect the presidential contest more — misogyny or racism.”
But fast-forward to the bottom of the page:
Those close to Hillary say she’s feeling blue. It’s an unbearable twist of fate to spend all those years in the shadow of one Secretariat, only to have another gallop past while you’re plodding toward the finish line.
I know that the attacks against powerful women can be harsh and personal and unfair, enough to make anyone cry.
But Hillary is not the best test case for women. We’ll never know how much of the backlash is because she’s a woman or because she’s this woman or because of the ick factor of returning to the old
As a possible first Madame President, Hillary is a flawed science experiment because you can’t take Bill out of the equation. Her story is wrapped up in her marriage, and her marriage is wrapped up in a series of unappetizing compromises, arrangements and dependencies.
Instead of carving out a separate identity for herself, she has become more entwined with Bill. She is running bolstered by his record and his muscle. She touts her experience as first lady, even though her judgment during those years on issue after issue was poor. She says she’s learned from her mistakes, but that’s not a compelling pitch. … If Hillary fails, it will be her failure, not ours.
(Emphasis added, of course.) Translated: As Mehitabel the cat would say, Cheerio, my Deario. Or Cavafy again:
As becomes one worthy as you were of such a city,
Firmly draw near the window,
And listen with emotion but not
with the complainings and entreaties of cowards,
Listen, your last enjoyment, to the sounds,
The wonderful instruments of the mystic company,
And say farewell, farewell to Alexandria you are losing.
—Id., The Poems of C. P. Cavafy, 26
Translated by J. Mavrogordatos
(The Hogarth Press, London 1951)
2 comments:
That column brought Shakespeare to MY mind...
Personally, I prefer Cheerio My Deeario to some translated je ne sais quoi.
The very first verse of the Marquis poem is a perfect metaphor for the U.S. economy and what Bernacke is trying to do for it at the moment:
well boss i met
mehitabel the cat
trying to dig a
frozen lamb chop
out of a snow
drift the other day
And if this isn't Hillary's story, please tell me what is:
... i was always getting
the rough end of it
always being
misunderstood by some
strait laced
prune faced bunch
of prissy mouthed
sisters of uncharity
the things that
have been said
about me archy
exclamation point
Moral: Trust folk art over academic poesie to get it right -- or at least more right -- every time.
Yours crankily,
The New York Crank
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