Sadness

The remedy (or psychotherapy) against sadness caused by the world's misery is to do something about it.

Least said, soonest mended.

Lament for the Death of Ignacio Sánchez Mejías

Up the bleachers goes Ignacio
with death on his shoulders.
He looks for dawn
and it isn’t dawn.
He looks for his sensible profile
and sleep confuses him.
He looks for his beautiful body
and finds his open blood.
Don’t ask me to see it!
I don’t want to feel the spurt
growing weaker by the moment,
the spurt that illumines
the seats and spills
on the hide of the thirsty crowd.
Who orders me to look!
Don’t make me see it!

His eyes didn’t close
when he saw the horns approach,
but the terrible mothers
raised their heads
and all through the cattle ranches
there was an air of secret orders
thrown to celestial bulls
by the foremen of pale mists.
There wasn’t a prince in Seville
who could compare,
no sword like his sword
nor a heart so real.
His strength was a river of lions,
his prudence a torso of marble.
An air of Andalusian Rome
gilded his head
where his smile was a rose
of salt and intelligence.
The great fighter of bulls!
The good mountaineer of the mountain!
How soft with the wheat stalk!
How hard with his spurs!
How tender with the dew!
How dazzling in the fair!
How grand with the last
banderillas of dusk!

But now he sleeps forever.
Now the grass and the moss
open with sure fingers
the flower of his skull.
And his blood comes singing:
singing through marshes and prairies,
sliding down shivering horns,
wandering soulless in fog,
stumbling on thousands of hoofs
like a long, dark, sorrowful tongue
to form a puddle of agony
by the Guadalquivir of the stars.
Oh white wall of Spain!
Oh black bull of sorrow!
Oh hard blood of Ignacio!
Oh nightingale of his veins!
No.
I don’t want to see it!
There is no chalice to hold it.
There are no swallows that drink it,
no frost of light to cool it,
no song or deluge of lilies,
no crystal to bathe it in silver.
No.
I don’t want to see it!

ANTIGONE: (715-725)
O tomb, vaulted bride-bed
in eternal rock,
Soon I shall be with my own again
Where Persephone welcome
the thin ghost underground:
And I shall see my father again,
and you, mother,
And dearest Polyneices––
dearest indeed
To me, since it was my hand
That washed him clean and poured the ritual wine:
And my reward is death before my time!
And yet, as men’s hearts know,
I have done no wrong,
I have not sinned before God.
Or if I have,
I shall know the truth in death.
But if the guilt
Lies upon Creon
who judged me,
then, I pray,
May his punishment
equal my own.

THE LAST VERSES
CHORAGOS:
Then do not pray any more: the sky is deal
CREON:
Lead me away. I have been rash and foolish.
I have killed my son and my wife.
I look for comfort; my comfort lies here dead.
Whatever my hands have touched has come to nothing.
Fate has brought all my pride to a thought of dust.

[As CREON is being led into the house, the CHORAGOS advances and
speaks directly to the audience.]
CHORAGOS:
There is no happiness where there is no wisdom;
No wisdom but in submission to the gods. 1040
Big words are always punished,
And proud men in old age learn to be wise.