De Hongaarse dichter Endre Ady werd geboren op 22 november 1877 in het huidige Adyfalva. Zie ook mijn blog van 22 november 2008 en ook mijn blog van 22 november 2009.
Benediction from a Train
The express is hurtling at full speed,
the sun explodes into the sea,
my memories flash a millisecond,
and I bless you.
“May God bless
all your goodness,
your unresponsiveness,
and all your wickedness.
May your words of torment
return to you in benediction.
May your coldness
leap into flames.
All is at an end.
I have a thousand cares,
and for my folly
the bier is spread.
Well, I bless you,
and meanwhile
kiss me softly,
in silence and peace.
I wish to leave you
with a memory and a kiss
to freeze for warmth,
to be alone,
to feel alone,
to die alone.
May God bless you.”
The express is hurtling at full speed,
the sun explodes into the sea,
my memories flash a millisecond,
and I bless you.
Vertaald door Gábor Lendvai
Endre Ady (22 november 1877 – 27 januari 1919)
Buste in de Hungarian Cultural Gardens, Cleveland, Ohio
De Amerikaanse schrijver William Kotzwinkle werd geboren op 22 november 1943 in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Zie ook mijn blog van 22 november 2008 en ook mijn blog van 22 november 2009.
Uit: The Amphora Project
“Sky mines,” hissed Lizardo, his throat inflating nervously as he gazed out the flight deck window at the ornaments of doom flickering in the darkness. His armored scales made a scraping sound as he wrapped his tail around the pedestal of his seat. “No one mentioned minefields.”
“You worry too much,” said Commander Jockey Oldcastle, his formidable paunch pressed against the controls of their descending ship.
“That’s why we haven’t been killed until now,” hissed Lizardo. He was a navigator from Planet Serpentia. The pupils of his eyes were shaped like keyholes in an ancient lock, glowing with menace. In the rooms of his brain were recipes for poisons in all dilutions, from mild to murderous. Two fangs lay backward against the roof of his mouth. When they swung forward, they filled with venom and the recipient of it was going to go to sleep, for hours, days, or forever, depending on the mixture.
Jockey looked beyond the sky mines to the little moon below.
“Made for pleasure.”
“Only fools seek pleasure on such places. We don’t need this job.”
“We need any job we can get.” Jockey touched the controls lightly, taking the ship closer to the minefield.
Lizardo’s scaly claws clicked on the control face of his naviga�tional equipment. He was preparing a flight plan for escape, back out through the minefield. Serpentians receive vibratory patterns from the metabolic processes of other brains, and metabolic tremors were now reaching him from the moon below. Amid the usual garbage of human and alien emotion he discerned the emanation of a hunting party–highly focused individuals on the prowl. As there was no game on the little moon, what were they hunting?“
William Kotzwinkle (Scranton 22 november 1943)
De Engelse schrijver George Robert Gissing werd geboren op 22 november 1857 in Wakefield, Yorkshire. Zie ook mijn blog van 22 november 2008 en ook mijn blog van 22 november 2009.
Uit: Our Friend the Charlatan
„As he waited for his breakfast, never served to time, Mr. Lashmar drummed upon the window-pane, and seemed to watch a blackbird lunching with much gusto about the moist lawn of Alverholme Vicarage. But his gaze was absent and worried. The countenance of the reverend gentleman rarely wore any other expression, for he took to heart all human miseries and follies, and lived in a ceaseless mild indignation against the tenor of the age. Inwardly, Mr. Lashmar was at this moment rather pleased, having come upon an article in his weekly paper which reviewed in a very depressing strain the present aspect of English life. He felt that he might have, and ought to have, written the article himself a loss of opportunity which gave new matter for discontent.
The Rev. Philip was in his sixty-seventh year; a thin, dry, round-shouldered man, with bald occiput, straggling yellowish beard, and a face which recalled that of Darwin. The resemblance pleased him. Privately he accepted the theory of organic evolution, reconciling it with a very broad Anglicanism; in his public utterances he touched upon the Darwinian doctrine with a weary disdain. This contradiction involved no insincerity; Mr. Lashmar merely held in contempt the common understanding, and declined to expose an esoteric truth to vulgar misinterpretation. Yet he often worried about it — as he worried over everything.
Nearer causes of disquiet were not lacking to him. For several years the income of his living had steadily decreased; his glebe, upon which he chiefly depended, fell more and more under the influence of agricultural depression, and at present he found himself, if not seriously embarrassed, likely to be so in a very short time. He was not a good economist; he despised everything in the nature of parsimony; his ideal of the clerical life demanded a liberal expenditure of money no less than unsparing personal toil. He had generously exhausted the greater part of a small private fortune; from that source there remained to him only about a hundred pounds a year. His charities must needs be restricted; his parish outlay must be pinched; domestic life must proceed on a narrower basis. And all this was to Mr. Lashmar supremely distasteful.“
George Robert Gissing (22 november 1857 – 28 december 1903)
De Nederlands dichteres en schrijfster Elisabeth Maria Post werd geboren in Utrecht op 22 november 1755. Zie ook mijn blog van 22 november 2006.en ook mijn blog van 22 november 2008 en ook mijn blog van 22 november 2009.
De bosch-duif
Lief duifjen! in uw’ ted’ren toon,
Hoor ik een liefdeklagt;
Gij zucht uw koe koe roe roe roe,
Zoo innig smachtend uit;
Het galmt door ’t hol en statig bosch;
Een Echo baauwt het na;
Ik luister; en ook in mijn hart
Roept nog een Echo na.
Werd u uw gaaiken ongetrouw?
Of nam een roofdier ’t weg?
Zit ge op ’t verlaaten nest alleen?
Is uw geluk nu weg?
Zij geeft geen antwoord, hoe gij roept;
Uw klagt verscheurt mijn hart;
Veelmeer misschien dan iemant ooit,
Deel ‘k in uw treurigheid.
Ook ik, gescheiden van mijn’ vriend,
Den eengen in ’t heelal,
Die mijn geheele hart bezit,
Ben hier zoo gantsch alleen:
Onzeker of het lot ons ooit
Elkander geeven zal,
Ga ik mistroostig door dit bosch;
Zijn groen lacht mij niet aan.
Der vooglen wildzang zij zoo blij
Als ooit, ik word niet blij;
Alleen uw koe koe roe roe roe,
O! das gevalt mijn hart!
Elisabeth Maria Post (22 november 1755 – 3 juli 1812)
Het landhuis Emminkhuizen waar de fam. Post waarschijnlijk enige jaren heeft gewoond