Flying High

Munching on Melancholy

This melancholy London. I sometimes imagine that the souls of the lost are compelled to walk through its streets perpetually. One feels them passing like a whiff of air.

- William Butler Yeats, letter to Katharine Tynan (1888-08-25)

Edvard Munch (12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian Symbolist painter, printmaker and an important forerunner of expressionist art. His best-known composition, The Scream, is part of a series The Frieze of Life, in which Munch explored the themes of love, fear, death, melancholia, and anxiety.

Modern Education

Hieronymus Bosch, "The Conjurer" (1450 – 1516)

Movin' On

Mayst thou safely accomplish thy journey across the great sea, and Poseidon take thee to be a delight unto thy friends.

- Theognis of Megara (691-692)

Homeric Ode to Hermes

By dawn he was born,
By midday he played the lyre,
By evening, he stole the cattle
of far-reaching Apollo.
It was on that fourth day of the month
wherein lady Maia bore him.

When he leaped from the immortal knees of his mother,
Not long in the sacred cradle,
but sped forth to seek the cattle of Apollo,
crossing the threshold of the high-roofed cave.
There found he a tortoise, and won endless delight,
it was Hermes that first made of the tortoise a minstrel.

The creature met him at the outer door,
as she fed on the rich grass in front of the dwelling, waddling along, at sight whereof
the luck- bringing son of Zeus laughed,
and straightway spoke, saying:

"A lucky omen for me, not by me to be mocked!
Hail, darling and dancer, friend of the feast,
welcome are you!
Where did you get that garment,
a speckled shell, you, a mountain-dwelling tortoise?
I will carry thee within, and a boon shalt thou be to me,
not by me to be scorned, but you shall first serve my turn.
Best it is to bide at home, since danger is abroad.
While alive, you will be a protection from spells and witchery.
When you die, you will be a sweet music-maker."

Not Worried

The doors of many a man's lips do not meet, and many men are concerned with much that should not be spoken; for often that which is evil is better within, and that which is good was better before it came out.

- Theognis of Megara (421-424)