Friday, May 1, 2015

mi animula



Oh, happy wandering soul of mine,
my guest that makes me whole.
You will now travel forth to another place,
while pallid and stiff, I lie bare.
As usual, dying too is but a joke.

(My effort at "interpreting" this old Latin poem attributed to Hadrian, Emperor of Rome)


ANIMULA 

“Animula, vagula, blandula
Hospes comesque corporis
Quae nunc abibis in loca
Pallidula, rigida, nudula,
Nec, ut soles, dabis iocos.”
—P. Aelius Hadrianus Imp. (138)