No es extraño que Alejandro llevará la Ilíada con él en sus
expediciones en un precioso cofre. Una palabra escrita es la preferida de las
reliquias. Es algo a la vez más íntimo y más universal que cualquier otra obra
de arte. Es la obra de arte más cercana a la vida misma. Puede ser traducida a
cada lengua, y no solamente ser leída sino aspirada por todos los labios
humanos; -no ser representada sobre un lienzo o en mármol solamente, sino
cincelada con la misma respiración vital. El símbolo del pensamiento de un
hombre anterior se convierte en el habla de un hombre actual. Dos mil veranos han
impartido a los monumentos de la literatura Griega, como a sus mármoles,
solamente un tinte más maduro, dorado y otoñal, porque ellos han llevado su
propia atmósfera serena y celestial a todas las tierras para protegerlas contra
la corrosión del tiempo.
HDT (Walden, Reading, fragmento)
(traducción Guillermo Ruiz)
Primera vez aquí el 31 de diciembre de 2014
Primera vez aquí el 31 de diciembre de 2014
«Jamás te encontrarás, en tu camino, los límites del alma,
ni aunque recorras todos los senderos: tan profunda es su medida.»
Heráclito
"No wonder
that Alexander (5) carried the Iliad with him on his expeditions in a
precious casket. A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at
once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is
the work of art nearest to life itself. It may be translated into every
language, and not only be read but actually breathed from all human lips; — not
be represented on canvas or in marble only, but be carved out of the breath of
life itself. The symbol of an ancient man's thought becomes a modern man's
speech. Two thousand summers have imparted to the monuments of Grecian
literature, as to her marbles, only a maturer golden and autumnal tint, for
they have carried their own serene and celestial atmosphere into all lands to
protect them against the corrosion of time. Books are the treasured wealth of the
world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. Books, the oldest and
the best, stand naturally and rightfully on the shelves of every cottage. They
have no cause of their own to plead, but while they enlighten and sustain the
reader his common sense will not refuse them. Their authors are a natural and
irresistible aristocracy in every society, and, more than kings or emperors,
exert an influence on mankind. When the illiterate and perhaps scornful trader
has earned by enterprise and industry his coveted leisure and independence, and
is admitted to the circles of wealth and fashion, he turns inevitably at last
to those still higher but yet inaccessible circles of intellect and genius, and
is sensible only of the imperfection of his culture and the vanity and
insufficiency of all his riches, and further proves his good sense by the pains
which be takes to secure for his children that intellectual culture whose want
he so keenly feels; and thus it is that he becomes the founder of a family."
5.
Alexander the Great of Macedon, (356 B.C.-323 B.C.),
conquered the Persian Empire; Plutarch's
biography of Alexander says that he carried the Iliad with him
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