Assignment: The End

Jerry Kim

Classics80b

F Hahn

*Read with Beethoven’s 6^th Symphony, 5 ^th movement in the background*

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Dear Julia,

Being overcome by your beauty, I entreated my heart to compose you something that might send you to the stars. And failing that I am left with no choice but to show you the effect of one too deficient in wit and too engrossed in love. It is a chaos of nonsense, the rambling of a fool, but I hope with your superior intellect you can make some sense of it. If it should somehow communicate to you even a shadow of my heart’s desire then I die in bliss – if by reading it has afforded you even a moment’s joy, my life’s purpose is done! O read and if it is so detestable to your ear, then may I die quickly – let me die quickly trusting that you love me!

Here's to the one I love best, O Julie

Here's to the one I love best

For my love like the Tiber, the Tiber

Flows deep, flows deep in my breast

O love like the Tiber, the Tiber, O Julie

Flows free in the veins of my breast

-Marcus Tullius Antonius; 16, March 44

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Dear Marcus,

I can too say Marcus with no greater honesty that nothing else would please me than to be loved by you for I would not deign to be Caesar’s empress in your stead. Whatever we know well we express as words flow like water from the stream (Boileau). Your song has delighted me so much I made some addendum to those lines, not to stick the wound and turn the blade but to do you reverence. Tell me what you think And believe me no less either – I love with fury but I write with shame!

Clasp my heart and break it never

I saw you and became a lover

love but you and you forever

And only you, my Tully

O will you be my Dearie, O

O will you love and cheer me, O

When times are tough and drearie, O

O will you be mine, O Tully?

-Julia; 20, March 44

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Dear Julie,

Wow! I got your winsome letter;
It fills my heart with zeal and too much flatter.
Could I believe you'd send that flatt'ring strain
To me, your undeserving love in vain
Impenitently bold 'twere greater harms;
But fools are made in lots by Julia's charms.

O pardon me! if I offend your ear

I am not Sappho but not less sincere

Unlearned but in a poetaster’s art

No skill but the sincerity of heart
Injurious sure who writes with rage or phlegm,
Still worse cold silence does than all of them.

Dearest, I am so barren of expression in your presence that to speak at length would certainly deepen your impression of me that I am a stupid fool. Do no less than believe me when I say I love you and desire nothing in this world with greater passion than to enter into the service of your heart as your most humble servant.

-Marcus Tullius Antonius; 20, July 44

(Blah, blah, blah, they live happily ever after)

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Source:

1. Boileau, Nicolas. "The Art of Poetry".