Translation from the Bacchae

Below is the first of what I hope will be a running translation of (and commentary on) the choruses from Euripides's Bacchae:

From Asia
I left holy Tmolos to urge on
For Bromios
work sweet, toil
that is no toil,
as I sing
EVOHE FOR BACCHOS!

Who on the road? Who on the road? Who?
Let him come, outside the halls,
And let his tongue speak no word that is not holy, no word
at all:
For my part, I shall sing Dionysos in songs set down
forever by tradition.

Ah, blest who fair-fated
knowing the ritual of the gods
a pure life lives and
her spirit frenzied celebrates
in the mountains worshiping
Bacchos with holy purifying rites,
and the Great Mother’s
orgies, Cybele’s, observing as is due,
the thyrsos lifting up, shaking:
and crowned with ivy
Dionysos is all her care.

The Dionysiac cult is one of radical “here-ness,” and the blessings of the god are to be enjoyed in the here and now, not in the afterlife.

Benazir Bhutto

I was having my morning coffee yesterday when I saw the news--first, that Bhutto had been injured in an attack in Rawalpindi and then, horribly, almost inevitably, that she had died. Despite what I have been told were her manifold failings (and who, after all, doesn't have them?), she represented the best chance for democracy to take root in Pakistan. I mourn her loss and pray for her country and for the world.

Being Present

A little more than a week ago, I had the opportunity to spend the night with ten men who currently have nowhere to live. The homeless shelter is housed by the First Presbyterian Church of New York City, just down Fifth Avenue from the Church of the Ascension, where Jonathan and I attend. I had had a particularly dispiriting day, so the chance to be present with others whose circumstances were far more challenging than my own was, shall we say, opportune. I heartily recommend this kind of "service" to all.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all! May this Christmastide find you and yours happy, healthy, and at peace. May we all work for peace and justice today and every day.

Peace.

Welcome, all, to my new blog. I suppose I needed a soapbox, so now I have one.