Preface
When a spirit bared burns its mortal matter, the gods delight in the scent of the rising smoke. For the rest of us who live in dying, we find a beacon lit to guide our wayward ships and a pyre by which to remember the holy wandering — a lonely light for which to thank and think.
It is with such a thankful thought, and with Heraclitean appreciation for the fire to be found in the heart of man, that I read through the pages of To Arcadia, gifted to me more than a year ago by the author himself. He and I have been for the past few years not merely friends, but comrades invested in a common cause, however different our course, of doing service to our limited existence. In that time, we have learned much from each other, finding inspiration and encouragement through candid, if often bewildering, discourse in the desolate border-deserts of the effable and the god-rayed sea-squalls of high feeling. And we have graciously shared in the blessings — as well as a curse or two — of the spiritual agōn, so loved by the heirs of the Achaeans to whom we are both indebted.
Out of my gratitude for his seemingly inexhaustible intellectual and artistic generosity, I began work on re-reading and revising To Arcadia, to grant it the critical benefit of another set of eyes. And thus, I offer to him and to his reader this new abridged edition. In so doing, I hope that I may return to my companion a long over-due honor — a meager monument not yet to his death fortunately, but for now, at least, to his morbidity. Bronze and marble and even conceit have hitherto carried many the word of a poet long past his time, but I have only this humble wish for the readers present and future: May this man’s word live well — it matters not for a long time or for a short one — in the breath which animates us.
For the curious reader, unfamiliar with the author, I can only tell her to read the beginning and see for herself whether she should like to run through the gamut or not. For whoever may look back upon this work, should the author acquire some fame in the future, she would see, as is readily apparent from its propensity toward the emphatic, a work of youth — a cup over-flowing and over-drank-out-of. It is often the product of the warm and reddened soul, and the hand which restrains it of a slightly colder one — the more sober and therefore (it must be admitted), the drier one. The result of some editorial decisions should be for the reader just a few more nights well-enjoyed and well-remembered rather than blanked by passion overmuch. Nevertheless, lest I sail to Byzantium instead, I have no interest in chastising youth’s excesses as such, being appreciably young myself.
In any case, several features distinguish these Selections from its original source. Some are improvements: Many of the typographical and grammatical errors have been fixed, slight stylistic emendations have been made to the prose sections, and perhaps most importantly, there are now sections headings and page numbers, along with a table of contents, making the particular sections of the work easier to reference and remember. Others are not: Selections does not as clearly express a common theme as did To Arcadia. If the reader should like to recover this unity, she should turn back to the old Peloponnese.
