By John Hertz: I don’t mean this one despite Otto Binder and even Virgil Finlay.
Last spring I put here something I called Et in Arcadia Ego, Latin for “And [even] in Arcadia, I am.”
In the study of classical Greek and Roman art that’s a famous tag, signifying “We human beings may find ourselves facing Death even in what seems a place of carefree pleasure.” About what that in turn signifies, opinions differ.
I brought it, in my opinion-differing way, for a pointer to an element of S-F appearing where it might be a surprise if it hadn’t been elemental.
Here’s another.
A man I know oddly collects (I mean, I know him oddly, but thinking about it he collects oddly too) Elizabethan courtly riddles, not in a Bet-you-can’t-guess-this way but as a kind of poetical pastime, whether actually documented in history or merely in that style. Someone gave him this one. I’ve been trying to trace it.
I never was, but always shall be.
No one has seen me, nor ever will.
Yet I have the confidence of all
Who live and breathe
On this terrestrial ball.
As you saw from my title above, it’s Tomorrow.
Pretty.
And, I realized, if I may adopt the phrase, one of us.
Some citizen of Electronicland showed me this link. Neither complete nor conclusive, but the best I’ve found.
What a lovely prayer. As a person who is interested in Buddhism and mindfulness, it sang to me. Remember the now. It will never be again.