ACHILLES (to Hector) I do disdain thy courtesy, proud Trojan. Be happy that my arms are out of use. My rest and negligence befriends thee now, But thou anon shalt hear of me again: #Troilus_2026 Act V s6 (15-18) #TheBard_ProblemPlays

#TolstoyReadalong „Die können sich auch keine ungünstigere Zeit zum Schwatzen aussuchen, dachte sie. Da kommt eine Schnepfe ... Tatsächlich, da ist sie schon. Sie werden sie noch versäumen!“ [Laska, der Hund] Leo N. Tolstoi Anna Karenina 2.15 Aus dem Russischen übertragen von Fred Ottow.

#Troilus_2026 TROILUS O traitor Diomed! Turn thy false face, thou traitor, And pay the life thou ow'st me for my horse. V,6,7-8 #TheBard_ProblemPlays Geoffrey Chaucer Troilus and Cressida 251 „his anger day and night full cruelly the Greeks were taught: and always most this Diomede he sought.“

The sun is a drum the moon is a cymbal The flow of time is caught in a cup. -Mary Barnard

NESTOR There is a thousand Hectors in the field. Now here he fights on Galathe his horse, And there lacks work. Anon he’s there afoot, And there they fly or die, like scaled sculls Before the belching whale. #Troilus_2026 Act V s5 (19-23) #TheBard_ProblemPlays #MelvilleMonday

#Troilus_2026 V,4,19-21 DIOMEDES Thou dost miscall retire: I do not fly; but advantageous care Withdrew me from the odds of multitude. William Shakespeare

And discovering the joy of it! #MelvilleMonday

#MelvilleMonday "And if we reject this brotherhood now, we shall be forced to join hands hereafter. A misfortune is not a fault; and good luck is not meritorious." Herman Melville, c. 1849

Roland Barthes: “Were I a writer, and dead, how I would love it if my life … were to reduce itself to a few details, a few preferences, a few inflections, let us say: to ‘biographemes’ whose distinction and mobility might go beyond any fate and come to touch … some future body.”

“[…] if the body had been easier to understand, nobody would have thought that we had a mind.” — Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature

“Das Leben bildet eine Oberfläche, die so tut, als ob sie so sein müßte, wie sie ist, aber unter ihrer Haut treiben und drängen die Dinge.” — Robert Musil, MoE

“Life folded Death; Death trellised Life.” (Moby-Dick, Ch. 102) #MelvilleMonday 🐳

#TolstoyReadalong „Lewin hörte schweigend zu; und trotz aller Bemühungen war er absolut nicht imstande, sich in die Seele seines Freundes hineinzuversetzen, seine Gefühle zu verstehen und an der Leidenschaft eines solchen Studiums auch nur das geringste Vergnügen zu finden.“ Anna Karenina 2.14

PANDARUS What says she there? TROILUS Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart: Th’ effect doth operate another way. #Troilus_2026 Act V s3 (106-108) #TheBard_ProblemPlays

CASSANDRA. It is the purpose that makes strong the vow, But vows to every purpose must not hold. Unarm, sweet Hector. Act V s3 #TheBard_ProblemPlays #Troilus_2026 #Cassandra

Ahoy, Shipmates & Friends! Happy #MelvilleMonday ! 🐳 “No custom is strange; no creed is absurd; no foe, but who will in the end prove a friend.” Mardi, C3

“Ultimately, ‘Moby-Dick’ is about the quest of the narrator, Ishmael, the story’s lone survivor, to make meaning out of trauma and keep the human story going.” Aaron Sachs, Cornell University (2019) #MelvilleMonday

He burns, too, the purest of oil, in its unmanufactured, and, therefore, unvitiated state; a fluid unknown to solar, lunar, or astral contrivances ashore. It is sweet as early grass butter in April. Moby Dick. XCVII. Happy #MelvilleMonday, dear friends!

Happy #MelvilleMonday 🐳 ! “They were very small craft; and when I beheld them, I perceived the force of that sailor saying, intended to illustrate restricted quarters, or being on the limits. It is like a fisherman's walk, say they, three steps and overboard.“ Herman Melville REDBURN C20

#Troilus_2026 V,3,25-28 HECTOR Hold you still, I say. Mine honour keeps the weather of my fate: Life every man holds dear, but the dear man Holds honour far more precious-dear than life.

#TolstoyReadalong Lewin kannte ein Mittel, seinen Ärger zu unterdrücken und etwas Schlechtes zum Guten zu wenden…Er schaute eine Weile zu, wie Mischka,gewaltige Erdklumpen an den Füssen,über das Feld marschierte, stieg dann vom Pferde, nahm Wassilij das Saatsieb ab und machte sich selber ans Säen.

The following sentence, and here lies some of the danger: "The mind of Private Williams was imbued with various colors of strange tones, but it was without delineation, void of form." - Carson McCullers, Reflections in a Golden Eye (1941)

CRESSIDA Troilus, farewell! one eye yet looks on thee, But with my heart the other eye doth see. . . . this fault in us I find, The error of our eye directs our mind. What error leads must err: O, then conclude Minds swayed by eyes are full of turpitude. #Troilus_2026 Act V s2 (105-108)

All of the talk of being a child in early chapters of _The Idiot_, and Lizaveta Prokof'evna Epanchina's confirmation of Myshkin's guess: "I'm a child and I know it," had me thinking about Harold Skimpole in _Bleak House_, which Dostoevsky certainly had read.

#TolstoyReadalong „mit einemmal war der Frühling wirklich da. Die Strahlen der aufgehenden Sonne räumten mit der dünnen Eiskruste auf, die die Gewässer überzogen hatte, und in der warmen Luft zitterten die feuchten Dünste, die aus der erwachenden Erde aufstiegen... die Knospen der 1+

#Troilus_2026 TROILUS Not the dreadful spout Which shipmen do the hurricano call, Constring'd in mass by the almighty sun, Shall dizzy with more clamour Neptune's ear In his descent than shall my prompted sword Falling on Diomed. V,2,170 ff #TheBard_ProblemPlays 1+

I was very interested in the inventories of #Iliazd 's library included in the Fonds Iliazd @labnf.bsky.social . They turned out to be, understandably, limited lists of books from his library aimed at different booksellers--antiquarians, Africana studies--rather than an exhaustive list.

Along the way In the neighborhood “Solo”

“Mais de temps en temps. De temps en temps. Quelle bonté dans ces petits mots, quelle férocité.” (Beckett, Molloy)

AGAMEMNON We go wrong, we go wrong. #Troilus_2026 Act V s1 (61) #TheBard_ProblemPlays

#Troilus_2026 V,1,6-7 #TheBard_ProblemPlays THERSITES Why, thou picture of what thou seemest, and idol of idiotworshipers, here‘s a letter for thee. From: Cassell's Illustrated Shakespeare Charles Cowden Clarke, Mary Cowden Clarke, 1866

#TolstoyReadalong „Was für Wronskij fast ein ganzes Jahr lang der einzige Wunsch seines Lebens gewesen war … was Anna als ein undenkbares, schreckliches, aber deshalb um so leidenschaftlicher ersehntes Glück erschienen war — dieser Traum war erfüllt.“ Leo N. Tolstoi Anna Karenina 2.11

#TheBard_ProblemPlays Day 45, 2/13- Act IV s5 from 150 "AJAX. If I might in entreaties find success--" to end of scene, TROILUS. She was beloved, she loved; she is, and doth. But still sweet love is food for fortune's tooth.

MY BIRD AND I My bird and I are fast asleep reflected in a mirror, our cage our bed our visages reflecting that of one another we sleep beneath the eternally falling snow my bird and I.

#TolstoyReadalong „er traf weder den beabsichtigten Ton, noch sagte er ihr das, was er ihr eigentlich hatte sagen wollen. Ganz unwillkürlich geriet er jedesmal in seine gewohnte überlegen-ironische Art zu sprechen, und in diesem Ton konnte er seiner Frau unmöglich sagen, was er ihr hätte sagen

HECTOR (to Achilles) O, like a book of sport thou’lt read me o’er; But there’s more in me than thou understand’st. #Troilus_2026 Act IV s5 (239-240) #TheBard_ProblemPlays

#Troilus_2026 HECTOR The end crowns all; And that old common arbitrator, Time, Will one day end it.  IV,5,223-225 #TheBard_ProblemPlays

"The thing at issue is buried intentions—the secret allegiances of the alienated heart, always the main threat to the theocratic mind, as well as its immemorial quarry." - Arthur Miller (died on this day, 2005) From: "Why I Wrote 'The Crucible'", The New Yorker, Oct 19, 1996.

Lincoln was born on this day in 1809. "I remember his cheer, his story-telling—always the good story well told. His ways were beautiful and simple. And he was the same man in all relationships—for instance, to the boys—the messenger boys." - Walt Whitman Abraham Lincoln and his son Tad.

Reading Notes, 2/12/26 I'm a slow reader. One day I'll remember that as I blithely request ALL THE BOOKS. katenread.wordpress.com/2026/02/12/r...

ULYSSES The youngest son of Priam, a true knight, Not yet mature, yet matchless, firm of word, Speaking in deeds and deedless in his tongue, Not soon provoked nor being provoked soon calmed, His heart and hand both open and both free; . . . They call him Troilus #Troilus_2026 Act IV, s4 (96-100)

#Troilus_2026 IV,5,141-144 #TheBard_ProblemPlays HECTOR Not Neoptolemus so mirable, On whose bright crest Fame with her loud'st Oyes Cries „This is he“, could promise to himself A thought of added honour torn from Hector.

Shakespeare continues to surprise me- this scene sounds very post-modern.

“When it’s in a book I don’t think it’ll hurt any more . . . exist any more. It’ll be wiped out. That’s what I find, with this story I’ve had with you. That writing . . . one of the things writing does is wipe things out. Replace them.” — Duras, Emily L. (tr. Barbara Bray)