in stone

in stone
for Keikei

..that light should break time and tide…

Ὅσον ζῇς φαίνου
μηδὲν ὅλως σὺ λυποῦ
πρὸς ὀλίγον ἔστι τὸ ζῆν
τὸ τέλος ὁ χρόνος ἀπαιτεῖ.

from the stele of Seikilos to his wife
(dated 1st or the 2nd century AD)
Translation:
While you live, shine,
have no grief at all.
Life’s a while only,
the end as time requires

for you
no night
be wholly
dark
no sorrow
stay its
chain
about your
heart
however hard
the circumstance,
from that somewhere,
that inviolate warmth
within you,
may your smile
ever break
to shore
under the
clear weathers
of your eyes,
though time shall
have its end,
so too it
ends in
us.

22 January 2021
riverside

Copyright © 2021 Peter Le Baige. All Rights Reserved

The music is from the second movement ”Andante cantabile’ of Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s String Quartet No. 1 performed here by the Drolc Quartet.