(Ovid) "I grabbed a pile of dust and, holding it up,"

[henh...@gmail.com]

a nice scene from a movie

________________________________________
(late 1940's)

German woman :
Have you ever read Ovid?
Metamorphoses in the original Latin?
It's quite beautiful.


(Yale-educated, American man)

"I grabbed a pile of dust and, holding it up,"

"foolishly asked for as many birthdays as the grains of dust."

"I forgot to ask that they be years of youth."


German woman : Bravo.

[henh...@gmail.com]

This could be my Number-One favorite Spy movie.


the scene (the Ovid passage) reminds me of T.S.Eliot's -- i 'll show you fear in a handful of dust.


What are the earliest desc. of [a handful of dust] ? --- Homer ???

[Ed Cryer]

This is a very well known simile.
I recall from "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" that Keanu Reeves
said it to Socrates, and emptied a bowl of dust in front of him.
But I don't recall it in Homer or Hesiod. However in the Iliad there's a
famous simile about the generations of men being like leaves in a
forest, that pour down in autumn and spring anew next year.

Ed

[henh...@gmail.com]

thank you!


>>> German woman : Bravo.

since she said [Bravo.] , the Yale-educated, American man must have recited the lines in Latin.




the following is another lit. reference from the same movie.

______________________________________________

>>> ............... Edward Wilson (Matt Damon) is studying literature at Yale university under Dr. Fredericks (Michael Gambon). After a poetry reading, Wilson is kept behind for a brief conversation with Dr. Fredericks. After what appears to be a sexual advance from Fredericks, Wilson goes to leave, but pauses momentarily before doing so after being asked to listen to a poem Fredericks claims to have begun writing. He recites the first stanza of the following poem:


A bud has burst on the upper bough
(The linnet sang in my heart today);
I know where the pale green grasses show
By a tiny runnel, off the way,
And the earth is wet.
(A cuckoo said in my brain: “Not yet.”)

I nabbed the fly in a briar rose
(The linnet to-day in my heart did sing);
Last night, my head tucked under my wing,
I dreamed of a green moon-moth that glows
Thro’ ferns of June.
(A cuckoo said in my brain: “So soon?”)

Good-bye, for the pretty leaves are down
(The linnet sang in my heart today);
The last gold bit of upland’s mown,
And most of summer has blown away
Thro’ the garden gate.
(A cuckoo said in my brain: “Too late.”)


-------------------- the structure reminds me of Dylan Thomas's [Lament], whch was written maybe 50 years later

[Ed Cryer]

Many years ago when I discovered the books of Evelyn Waugh, "A Handful
of Dust" had me in stitches. It's years since I read a Waugh novel, but
just thinking about his dry sense of humour makes me want to read him again.
Ever read "The Loved One"? Brilliant satire on the British/ American
cultural divide.

Ed

[Ed Cryer]

https://tinyurl.com/24dklldu

Dust in the wind.

Ed