And so another academic year befalls us. If you are a student, Constant Reader, do not despair. The long, hard road awaits us, but at the end of its dark and thorny road awaits Paradise. The natural tide of seasons looms before us; Death and Winter must come before glorious Spring. After months of becoming pasty white with study, someday we will again see the sun. Do not fear the darkness of your soul. Do not fear the abyss. But don't stare at it too long, because according to Nietzche, it will stare back, and then you're in trouble. May we find balance in the cycle of natural life, in the changing times and winds. Let us see its poetry. Here's a little bit you can repeat to yourself every morning before class as a kind of "warm up" for the day (made all the more exciting in the almighty lingua Latina):
O cernite virum stantem aequoribus Fati.
Solus vir inter ruentos manet.
Fumi atri ad caelum ex ignibus magnis undant.
Arvum belli grave est cum gravitate mortuorum.
Video solem factum est nigerum tamquam saccum cilicinum,
Et lunam totam factam est sicut sanguinem.
Pulchrumque mori succurrit in armis.
Itaque apocalypsis incipit.
Libera nos, Pie Domine.
(Daniel Saunders, 2009)
O, observe the man, standing upon the waves of Fate.
One man only remains among the fallen.
Black smoke from great fires swells to the heavens.
The battlefield is heavy with the weight of the dead.
I see the sun made black like a sackcloth of goat hair
And the entire moon changed red as blood.
And it occurs to me that it is beautiful to die in battle.
Thus begins the Apocalypse.
Save us, O Merciful Lord.
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