DEATH BIOGRAPHY Memoirs of Hadrian 555 - Emperor Hadrian
The author tells, or rather has Adriano tell his life in the first person and collects his impressions,
when the emperor is close to death and writes to his adopted son Marcus Aurelius.
The emperor expresses his most intimate thoughts, his quotes on religious rites (he was particularly impressed and
influenced by the cult of the god Mithras), and relives his youth away from Rome, following the Roman armies.
Adriano knows he has to die and awaits this event, ready to receive it. The letter he writes to his adopted son is
the outburst (understandable) of a man who can no longer keep the business of the Empire, now emptied of all energy, and
transpires in the emperor, in man, the suffering of a sick person who frees the memories.
Adriano revisits the important and significant moments of his long reign (21 years), starting from relationships and
confidence that bound him to his friend-mother Plotinia, continuing with the story of his military campaigns, gods
travels, places visited and which particularly impressed him (Asia minor, Bithynia, the city of Nicomedia, etc.).
He expresses thoughts and judgments about his family, about books, about the "sport" then more in vogue: hunting. He talks to us about his
philosophical dissertations, his loves, relations with the emperor (and adoptive father) Trajan, his marriage
not happy.
Yourcenar has its protagonist tell about her very rich human experience of a man doing
treasure of every experience lived in his 21 years of reign becomes a statesman, enriched by the emergence of the truth
interior that the emperor had conquered.
The writer in this novel, which may seem only epistolary, gradually gives life to the personality of
Adriano, to his greatness, to the environment in which he lived more than 2000 years ago.
The emperor in the last days of his life examines the weaknesses of his spirit, makes considerations on his existence, and
he expresses feelings of gratitude for the few people who have always been close to him and who do not abandon him
not even in the last painful and desperate moments of his life.
I close this review I recall the verses composed by the emperor Hadrian shortly before his death:
"Little lost and sweet soul, companion and guest of the body, now you are preparing to go down to colorless, difficult and
bare, where you will no longer have the usual amusements.
A moment more, let's look at the familiar shores together, the things that we will certainly never see again ... let's try to
enter death with open eyes ... "
(Marguerite Yourcenar - Memoirs of Hadrian - Ed. Einaudi)
political biography history
To men without political ambitions,
without particular talents, without influential relationships,
that is, without the possibility of exchange or escape,
that fell darkly,
moved by elementary needs and elementary ideals.
To these men who in death as in life
they never had or asked for a quarter,
and of which the history, which also of them above all
it nourishes itself, prudently disperses the traces.
Luca Canali, in Impure Resistance, Mondadori
BLOG
So, I write an online diary and somehow tell people who don't know me. I also did
before, but I wrote in notebooks that I have now abandoned also because it is easier to write directly on the
pc keyboard. No, I can't explain all the technology to you, but I count on your intelligence and your ability to
understand, beyond my lines.
In short, grandfather, I write, write another and another and we meet by chance online.
In these situations everyone does what they feel, I personally write to people who seem nice to me and who
they are not too diffident. These are two important preconditions for a friendship. No I don't understand it there
distrust on the net, I'm careful too, but not too much, as in all the things I want to experience in life.
BLOG
I am drawn like a hardworking bee to blogs or posts that have more of a "public diary" tone.
I am also interested in this "thinking about the tool" (the blog) while using it.
I am not able yet (it should be done more systematically) to glimpse the types of blogs that people do
do.
but I got some ideas.
there is the blog-diary. it's the hottest one
there is the blog -invective. it is better to stay away
there is the blog-information. sometimes more interesting than an encyclopedia
there is the blog-game. sometimes with rules so complicated that it would take hours to play
... the blog-poetry ... the blog-music
and of course others. and intertwining between the various types
one thing is certain: blogs are an expansion of our subjectivity.
they are ways to cultivate oneself.
in some ways they are dramatic: they speak of our loneliness. lonely beings, in the age of decline of the great
social aggregations, who want to express themselves through protective identities. masks
communicating.
on the other hand they expand communication. unexpected encounters are made. the circle of acquaintances widens. there
mutual knowledge is no longer those who are close to us. but it is the whole of Italy.
BLOG
On Blogs
As a living in modernity I live not only the polytheism of values, but also that of roles and situations.
But if I had to remember for the future the "figure" of these months I would have to refer it to my adventure on blogs. And mine
voracious curiosity for this form of biographical communication made possible by Web technologies.
I had an interesting discussion with Ruckert on the subject which I would also like to have in my block of
notes.
Paolo to Ruckert I liked your biographical reenactment on the Blog on April 14th. I wanted to tell you right away - in short -
because I find Blogs of great cultural interest. Because I believe that through these writings and in the comments it stands
a revolution taking place. That is, the construction of an associative intelligence. That is, the elaboration of new ways of
think of the world through small stamps that show the associations between events and theirs
interpretation. Something that has a historical equivalent only with the birth of the "public opinion" it is
occurred with the French Enlightenment. In blogs I see culture, interests, passions. All broken up: but this is there
modernity. Modernity is a fragment. Only every single individual can attempt to "put together". So your slips
drawers can go out. And maybe intrigue someone .. who thus meets other thoughts ... A great one
Revolution. All the more profound because it is molecular. With blogs you can clearly see that there is no "mass" (the
reference-base of fascisms and communisms) but thinking individuals who associate their intelligence and feelings.
Ruckert: the reticular idea in the diffusion of ideas is interesting, we need to understand if and how it will take hold, if
there is no risk that the network can imprison rather than free, perhaps inserting us into small communities
self-referential. The risk, needless to deny it, exists as the potential. As often happens, the problem is balancing them
two things and to make sure that from this babel of passion ideal interests can emerge a critical mass (or
perhaps several critical masses) of greater breadth. Even here time will answer us, for now we can only
imagine ... Hi :)
Paolo: "if there is no risk that the network can imprison rather than free, perhaps inserting us in small ones
self-referential communities "It's true. Then the only possible reasoning is: what is the lesser of evils? LE
self-referentiality? or the single thought (I insist: that of totalitarian cultures)? I lean towards the first horn of the
dilemma. I find more freedom of thought in small groups that share more common feelings. I see the real problem
in the possible superficiality of the contacts. Social relations based on "stamps" tend to impoverish the meanings of
deeper and more comprehensive knowledge.
Hello Amalteo
Ruckert: True, but what if there was the third way? The ideal would be to fight aureferentiality in such a way as to widen
more and more small communities that then interacting with each other are able to make that mass capable of developing the
circulation of ideas, what do you think?
Ruckert: True, but what if there was the third way? The ideal would be to fight aureferentiality in such a way as to widen
more and more small communities that then interacting with each other are able to make that mass capable of developing the
circulation of ideas, what do you think?
Paolo: Dear Ruck, this time I fear that either we are not in tune or we don't understand each other. It is the word mass that inspires me
fear, thinking about the past, especially the short century (1917-1945). Infinitely better individuals than
communicate. Speakers who grow individually on the normal challenges of a normal life: birth, growth,
personality expansion, labor fatigue, acceptance of death. In the mass there is always a need for a
boss. As the Italian political affair also teaches: a television population (not the speakers of blogs) still has
acclaimed a boss. Which does not accept the rules of democracy. Knowing full well that televisions are sufficient to
create what "common sense" that will allow him (probably thanks to Bertinotti) to win for the third time. There
television makes mass, blogs can make individuals who find those common feel based on intelligence
associative. Hello and thanks for the incentives to think
Ruckert: I don't think we're not in tune, maybe we just need to understand each other. Let's try maybe starting from a
common language because it is necessary to understand the meaning of the words. At the end critical mass I don't want to give that
meaning. I prefer to imagine that the whole, or rather the increasingly numerous presence of individuals than
they communicate and interact with each other growing individually, can allow a qualitative improvement
of society in its diversity. The more the mass of free thoughts increases, the more it will be possible to have a
improvement, provided however that all these individuals maintain an open attitude towards as much as possible
the exterior, in such a way as to allow this model to develop in a reticular way. And this mass unlike the
the past may not need a hierarchically superordinate head due to the presence of a
lattice moving horizontally. What do you say? Are we really that far apart? Hi :)
Paolo: dear Ruck. It was quite a linguistic misunderstanding about the word "mass". I totally agree with yours
reasoning. Among other things, in your case, it is not just a "reasoning" but an active practice. Your intelligence and
I always see thinking skills implemented in your interactions with longtime or casual friends. You are
built a circle-lattice with them in which you amplify your experiences and experiences. Here is the strength of blogs: one
revolution through speaking. In short, once in a while, science and techniques can be used in a way
active and participated. Given the times that continue to be quite cruel, that's a lot. bye, see you soon
MariaPrivi in August will be a year that I frequent the blogging world. Final balance time? But no! I do not believe it.
Just a moment for conversation.
The blog is a fairly faithful mirror of the many "real" audiences. A vehicle with good and inevitable peculiarities
defects.
It allows rapid, and at times targeted, circularity of ideas, but there is the risk of receiving incorrect information.
Yet from Alex, with the blogs, we have even obtained concrete results -see for myself: How my land dies-.
With the blog I do everything: friendship, work, pastime.
For some people it can become indispensable (old people, lonely people, people with need and impossibility of
communicate otherwise), for others a drug (self-referencing, counter syndrome, improper substitution of
virtual with the real), there are those who use it to collect sex and those to arouse compassion.
A good means, a bad means, according to the use - whether active or passive - that is made of it. A means definitely in
in line with the character of our time.
Paolo full sharing, dear mariaprivi. Welcome! I am immensely pleased that you also positively evaluate the
communication revolution of blogs. I share everything, absolutely everything, what you say: first of all a place of
conversation; faithful mirror (almost a sample) of public opinion; rapidity in the circulation of
information; new types of friendship, not based on physical closeness, yet strong and affectionate; space
communicative for elderly people alone (I would also say: brain training and therefore prevention of
lapse of memory); compulsivity for some (it's true: but less harmful than mobile phones, because it is mediated by
written language, which is always an exercise in order); certainly also a place to promote sexual encounters (which, however
if consenting and confident, they are a joy of life).
True, very true: a means, an instrument. Not an end. An instrument at the service of personality.
Of blogs I love coincidences (meeting particular people that maybe I never could have known) and
occasions. For example, in these hours on ruckert's blog (post Gotan project) the drafting of one is starting
interactive jazz discography that could end with an almost collective text on this musical genre of
twentieth century. Hello dear. at present
communication revolution of blogs. I share everything, absolutely everything, what you say: first of all a place of
conversation; faithful mirror (almost a sample) of public opinion; rapidity in the circulation of
information; new types of friendship, not based on physical closeness, yet strong and affectionate; space
communicative for elderly people alone (I would also say: brain training and therefore prevention of
lapse of memory); compulsivity for some (it's true: but less harmful than mobile phones, because it is mediated by
written language, which is always an exercise in order); certainly also a place to promote sexual encounters (which, however
if consenting and confident, they are a joy of life).
True, very true: a means, an instrument. Not an end. An instrument at the service of personality.
Of blogs I love coincidences (meeting particular people that maybe I never could have known) and
occasions. For example, in these hours on ruckert's blog (post Gotan project) the drafting of one is starting
interactive jazz discography that could end with an almost collective text on this musical genre of
twentieth century. Hello dear. at present
BLOG
"What do you do on blogs?" he asked incredulously
"On blogs there is conversation!" Experimenter answered
This little dialogue between Amalteo and SurferRosa reminded me of some fragments and quotes from the book of Dacia
and Fosco Maraini, The game of the universe. I leave them here.
“Fosco was a born experimenter. The field of his experiments was language. Almost putting the
famous phrase by Roland Barthes: “Any refusal of language is a death”. With death he played hide and seek: the
words revealed the safest, most unthinkable hiding places to keep her at bay. But this also reveals more
passion, as TS Eliot says in the essay of the Sacred Wood dedicated to Philip Massinger, that is, what an evolution
vital of language is also an evolution of sentiment. So I don't play on the surface, an end in itself, but
I dig, through written language, into the hard land of thought. [...]
… The common language, except in rare cases, aims at univocal, punctual meanings with precise centering.
In the metasemantic language, on the other hand, words do not insert things like arrows, but brush them like feathers, or blows
of breeze, or rays of the sun, giving rise to multiple diffractions, to harmonic references, to polyvalent chromatisms, to phenomena
secondary fertilization, and it is easy to see the "domes of thought" that move slowly pushed by the "more
secrets ".
In the common language in front of things, events, emotions, thoughts new, or considered as such, there are sounds that give them
phonetically body and waist, which make them money for speech
In metasemantic language, or in poetry, the opposite is true. Sounds are proposed and the
their own heritage of inner experiences, perhaps their own subconscious, give them meanings, emotional values, depth and
beauties. It is therefore the word as music and as a spark.
... The word is like a candy, something to be turned between the tongue and the palate with pleasure, for a long time, extracting rivers of flavors and delights. … Beautiful words, ugly words, mysterious words, simple words, complex words, didactic words, words poetics, logical words, free words…. [...]
… Fosco will also confess that almost every word of his is the result of a long study. Certain expressions just don't
they came for months, he knew what he was looking for, but the tide never threw the right pebble on the beach.
Then one day, maybe shaving, changing a car tire, studying ideograms
or sitting in the snow in the sun, here is the pebble you are looking for. Now he just has to hope he didn't write in
a private and secret language, as if to say for him alone; what just would displease him.
… The poetic tension will accompany Fosco throughout his life. But he won't write many lines. His writing tended
to the scientific and the historian. Yet the joy of poetry often creeps even among its most stubborn lists. There
poetry as a verbal game, poetry as a liberation from a too constrained and rationalizing fantasy,
poetry as high verbal acrobatics, poetry as a game that is played. We find such in this fànfola:
The day to scream
There are some days smègi and lombidiosis
with a dagger sky and a swollen fònzero
there are gnàlid and budriosi afternoons
who plògidan on the broken world,
but today is a day in zìmpagi and zirlecchi
one day all gnacchi and timparlini,
the clouds buzz, the bernecchi
Ludèrchiano with the fèrnagi among the pines;
it is a day for vànvere, a party
a carmid and prodigious day,
is the day to chants, to scream
in which you said "I really love you".
But what are the fànfole? Fosco replied with a quote from Palazzeschi.
"What do those two sbrèndole, those ciufféche, those cirimbràccole have with us?" - Palazzeschi
The fànfola is a dialectal form, a linguistic squiggle, a very fine and hilarious grammelot that makes the
language from within, showing its contradictions, its poverty and its riches. Mostly revealing
how often the sound prevails over the meaning, the phoneme over the semanthema.
… Ah, the magic of words! That never stop surprising, chattering, laughing, manifesting themselves and then disappearing
in nothing.
… And at the end of all our "explorations" we will get to where we started and for the first time we will know the
"place". (TS Eliot)
So Fosco accumulated words with the patience of a great walker of the mind. "
Then:
BLOG
Recently my musician friend Enzo Nini was telling me about a creative process that he shared with other musicians.
It occurred to me that the web and, precisely, the blog, allows communication at 260 ° (there are still no
perfumes and textures).
MUSIC ART
We have no other purpose, as far as I'm concerned, than to reflect our time, the situations around us and things
that we can say with our art, the things that millions of people cannot say. I think this is there
function of the artist and, of course, those of us who are so lucky, leave a legacy that will survive when not there
we will be more ". (N. Simone)
to listen
Tom Waits is one who sings and in his voice are the voices of all the drunken bums in the world.
It's not a rumor, it's a public landfill, it's a years long cigarette, it's millions of beers and miles, and hundreds of
loves and motels.
It is one of the most moving voices that you can hear
to listen
Can you tell us something about Duke Ellington?
"Duke was unique because he was able to give you a visual idea of the music you had to follow to better get into
composition.
His score not only contained notes, but also a story to tell, to identify with. If for
example you had to perform a song like African Flower, Ellington told you that playing you had to imagine the
most beautiful flower in the forest, a virgin flower that had never touched anyone "
to listen
Without music, life would be a mistake
Friedrich Nietzsche
listen to STRANGE FRUITS
"The trees of the south bear strange fruit, blood on the leaves and blood in the roots"
BEAUTY
Beauty is not a quality of things themselves: it exists only in the mind that contemplates them and every mind
perceives a different beauty.
David Hume
Of course, an e-mail or a post does not have the magic of a handwritten letter: there is no ink, paper,
calligraphy, the scent of the hand that wrote it, the surprise, the kilometers traveled ... but they make up for it with plurality
of options.
As far as I'm concerned, clearly superior to a phone call in the quantity of shades transmitted, even if I find
the voice is indispensable, I would say the music in words.
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