Etna Quotes

Is it so small a thing To have enjoy'd the sun, To have liv'd light in the spring, To have lov'd, to have thought, to have done; To have advanc'd true friends, and beat down baffling foes...?

As the sun rose I could see Etna, a truncated cone with a plume of smoke over it like the quill of a pen stuck in a pewter inkpot, rising out of the haze to the north of where I was treading water.

Would that our age could now return / To those pure ways of leading life. / But now the passion to possess / Burns fiercer than Mount Etna's fire.

Messina between the volcanoes, Etna and Stromboli, having known the death-agony's terror. I always dread coming near the awful place, yet I have found the people kind, almost feverishly so, as if they knew the awful need for kindness.

Great Empedocles, that ardent soul, Leapt into Etna, and was roasted whole.

SEGISMUNDO: ¡Ay mísero de mí, y ay infelice! Apurar, cielos, pretendo, ya que me tratáis así, qué delito cometí contra vosotros naciendo. Aunque si nací, ya entiendo qué delito he cometido; bastante causa ha tenido vuestra justicia y rigor, pues el delito mayor del hombre es haber nacido. Sólo quisiera saber para apurar mis desvelos -dejando a una parte, cielos, el delito del nacer-, ¿qué más os pude ofender, para castigarme más? ¿No nacieron los demás? Pues si los demás nacieron, ¿qué privilegios tuvieron que no yo gocé jamás? Nace el ave, y con las galas que le dan belleza suma, apenas es flor de pluma, o ramillete con alas, cuando las etéreas salas corta con velocidad, negándose a la piedad del nido que dejan en calma; ¿y teniendo yo más alma, tengo menos libertad? Nace el bruto, y con la piel que dibujan manchas bellas, apenas signo es de estrellas -gracias al docto pincel-, cuando, atrevido y cruel, la humana necesidad le enseña a tener crueldad, monstruo de su laberinto; ¿y yo, con mejor instinto, tengo menos libertad? Nace el pez, que no respira, aborto de ovas y lamas, y apenas bajel de escamas sobre las ondas se mira, cuando a todas partes gira, midiendo la inmensidad de tanta capacidad como le da el centro frío; ¿y yo, con más albedrío, tengo menos libertad? Nace el arroyo, culebra que entre flores se desata, y apenas sierpe de plata, entre las flores se quiebra, cuando músico celebra de las flores la piedad que le dan la majestad del campo abierto a su huída; ¿y teniendo yo más vida, tengo menos libertad? En llegando a esta pasión, un volcán, un Etna hecho, quisiera sacar del pecho pedazos del corazón. ¿Qué ley, justicia o razón negar a los hombres sabe privilegios tan süave excepción tan principal, que Dios le ha dado a un cristal, a un pez, a un bruto y a un ave?

If I was to establish a system, it would be, that Mountains are produced by Volcanoes, and not Volcanoes by Mountains.

May not subterraneous fire be considered as the great plough (if I may be allowed the expression) which Nature makes use of to turn up the bowels of the earth?

App ki muhabt mai hr setam gawara hy sirf etna keh dijye yh gulam tumhara hy YA KHUWAJA GAREEB NAWAZ R.A

Niccolo Machiavelli folded his arms across his chest and looked at the alchemyst. “I always knew we would meet again,” he said in French. “Though I never imagined it would be in these circumstances,” he added with a smile. “I was certain I’d get you in Paris last Saturday.” He bowed, an old-fashioned courtly gesture as Perenelle joined her husband. “Mistress Perenelle, it seems we are forever destined to meet on islands.” “The last time we met you had poisoned my husband and attempted to kill me,” Perenelle reminded him, speaking in Italian. Over three thousand years previously, the Sorceress and the Italian had fought at the foot of Mount Etna in Sicily. Although Perenelle had defeated Machiavelli, the energies they unleashed caused the ancient volcano to erupt. Lava flowed for five weeks after the battle and destroyed ten villages. “Forgive me. I was younger then, and foolish. And you emerged the victor of the encounter. I carry the scars to this day.” “Let us try and not blow up this island,” she said with a smile. Then she stretched out her hand. “I saw you try to save me earlier. There is no longer any enmity between us.” Machiavelli took her fingers in his and bent over them. “Thank you. That pleases me.

Typhon!" Hades yelled, his voice resonant. "I will bury what is left of you in the fires of Etna." He crashed the whip hard against the ground. "I am the son of Cronus, King of Darkness, and I do not fear you.

Empedocles was to die when he leapt into the crater of Mount Etna, in an attempt to prove to his followers that he was immortal. Opinion remained divided at the time, but over the years his lack of reappearance went against him.

- Svako ima svoj dug - reče Etna. Takav je život, Marija Baring. Dugovi i zaduživanja, obaveze, zahvalnost, plata... Nekome nešto učiniš. Možda i sebi? Jer zaista, plaćamo uvek sebi, ne nekome. Za sve što smo dužni plaćamo sebi. U svakome od nas leži poverilac i dužnik istovremeno. Stvar je u tome da taj račun u sebi poravnamo. Dolazimo na svet kao trunak života koji nam je dat, a potom se stalno zadužujemo i dugove isplaćamo. Sebi plaćamo. Sebe radi. Zarad toga da bi se naposletku račun složio.

And you, ye stars, Who slowly begin to marshal, As of old, the fields of heaven, Your distant, melancholy lines! Have you, too, survived yourselves? Are you, too, what I fear to become? You, too, once lived; You, too, moved joyfully Among august companions, In an older world, peopled by Gods, In a mightier order, The radiant, rejoicing, intelligent Sons of Heaven. But now, ye kindle Your lonely, cold-shining lights, Unwilling lingerers In the heavenly wilderness, For a younger, ignoble world; And renew, by necessity, Night after night your courses, In echoing, unneared silence, Above a race you know not— Uncaring and undelighted, Without friend and without home; Weary like us, though not Weary with our weariness.

No, thou art come too late, Empedocles! And the world hath the day, and must break thee, Not thou the world. With men thou canst not live, Their thoughts, their ways, their wishes, are not thine; And being lonely thou art miserable, For something has impair'd they spirit's strength, And dried its self-sufficing font of joy.

While altering the saga of Odysseus’s Return to make my Elyman suitors serve as Penelope’s lovers, I had to protect myself against scandal. What if someone recognized the story and supposed that I, Nausicaa the irreproachable, had played the promiscuous harlot in my father’s absence? So, according to my poem, Penelope must have remained faithful to Odysseus throughout those twenty years. And because this change meant that Aphrodite had failed to take her traditional revenge, I must make Poseidon, not her, the enemy who delayed him on his homeward voyage after the Fall of Troy. I should therefore have to omit the stories of Penelope’s banishment and the oar mistaken for a flail, and Odysseus’s death from Telemachus’s sting-ray spear. When I told Phemius of these decisions, he pointed out, rather nastily, that since Poseidon had fought for the Greeks against the Trojans, and since Odysseus had never failed to honour him, I must justify this enmity by some anecdote. “Very well,” I answered. “Odysseus blinded a Cyclops who, happening to be Poseidon’s son, prayed to him for vengeance.” “My dear Princess, every Cyclops in the smithies of Etna was born to Uranus, Poseidon’s grandfather, by Mother Earth.” “Mine was an exceptional Cyclops,” I snapped. “He claimed Poseidon as his father and kept sheep in a Sican cave, like Conturanus. I shall call him Polyphemus—that is, ‘famous’—to make my hearers think him a more important character than he really was.” “Such deceptions tangle the web of poetry.” “But if I offer Penelope as a shining example for wives to follow when their husbands are absent on long journeys, that will excuse the deception.

Yes: in the sea of life enisl'd, With echoing straits between us thrown, Dotting the shoreless watery wild, We mortal millions live alone.

My grandparents were Italian immigrants. My father’s father, Joseph Massimino, was from Linguaglossa, near Mount Etna in Sicily, and he came over in 1902 to New York City and ended up buying a farm upstate in a town called Warwick, which is where my father, Mario Massimino, grew up. When my dad left the farm he moved back to the city, to the Bronx, where he met my mom, Vincenza Gianferrara. Her family was from Palermo, also in Sicily, and they lived in Carroll Gardens, an

Do you see those dull stars?" She outlined the formation with her finger. "A pentagram," whispered Scott. "Yes, but not just any pentagram. Take a look through the telescope." Scott approached the eyepiece. "They're not stars!" "What do they look like?" asked Jenn. Scott studied each of the figures. "It can't be," he stuttered. "Planets?" "Exactly what I thought." "But how? They're completely off their orbits." "The earth's off its axis." "Mount Etna erupted." "Greece had a earthquake." "The whole universe has gone mad!" Scott exclaimed. "And my friends have supernatural powers," said Jenn.

October is one of the loveliest months in Sicily. It’s when summer opens its fist again, letting a little breeze into the house and allowing you to breathe again; when the light becomes as mellow as my Aunt Caterina’s limoncello and you take a sweater along in the evenings, just to be on the safe side;

Avevo sentito parlare delle iridescenze stupende dell'aurora sul Mare Jonio, quando la si contempla dalla vetta dell'Etna. Stabilii di intraprendere l'ascensione di quella montagna; passammo dalla regione delle vigne a quella della lava, poi della neve. Il fanciullo dalle gambe di danzatore correva su quelle ripide chine; i sapienti che mi accompagnavano salirono a dorso di muli. Sulla cima, era stato costruito un rifugio ove poter attendere l'alba. Questa alfine spuntò: un'immensa sciarpa d'Iride si distese da un orizzonte all'altro; strani fuochi brillarono sui ghiacci della vetta; la vastità terrestre e marina si dischiuse al nostro sguardo sino all'Africa, visibile, e alla Grecia che s'indovinava. Fu uno dei momenti supremi della mia vita.

Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool His mighty stature. On each hand the flames Driven backward slope their pointing spires, and rolled in billows, leave in the midst a horrid vale. Then with expanded wings he steers his flight Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air That felt unusual weight, till on dry land He lights - if it were land that ever burned With solid, as the lake with liquid fire, And such appeared in hue as when the force Of subterranean wind transports a hill Torn from Pelorus, or the shattered side Of thundering Etna, whose combustible And fueled entrails, thence conceiving fire, Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds And leave a single bottom all involved With stench and smoke. Such resting found the sole Of unblessed feet.

BÉGEARSS [very conceited]. My dear, there’s nothing to it. To start with, there are just two things that make the world go round: morality and politics. Morality, a very footling thing, means being fair and honest. It is, so they say, the basis of a number of rather boring virtues.[...] Politics is the art of making things happen, of leading people and events by the nose: it’s child’s play. Its purpose is self-interest, its method intrigue. Always economical with the truth, it has boundless, dazzling possibilities which stand like a beacon and draw you on. As deep as Etna, it smoulders and rumbles for a long time before finally erupting into the light of day. By then nothing can stop it. It calls for superior talents and is threatened by only one thing: honest principles. [He laughs] That’s the key to all the deals that are ever made!

hatalar ve düşler ve soluk görüntüler vardı çevresinde zafer takının ve sahte inançlar kapıların üzerinde ve kaygan umut ediş merdivenlerde ve zararlı kazanç ve yararlı zarar ve basamaklar, en çok çıkanın en aşağı indiği; yorucu dinlenme ve dinlendirici eziyet, parlak onursuzluk ve karanlık ve kara utku, aldatan bağlılık ve değişmeyen aldanma, tetikte delilik ve âtıl akıl; açık yollardan gittiğimiz, dar yollardan büyük güçlükle kaçtığımız hapis; hızlı inişler girmek için, çıkmak için yokuşlar; içeride, fırtınalı bir kargaşa, iç içe geçmiş kesin elemler ve belirsiz sevinçlerle. asla kaynamamıştır vulcano, lipari ya da ischia, stromboli ya da etna böyle azgın öfkeyle: bu tehlikeli oyuna atılan, pek az seviyordur kendini. böyle karanlık ve dar kafese kapatıldık, orada ağardı saçlarım kısa sürede ve değişti genç çehrem; ve onca zaman, hep özgürlüğü düşleyip, ruhumu, büyük arzunun hazır ve hafif kıldığı, avutuyordum geçmiş şeyleri görerek. bakıyordum, güneşteki kara dönmüş ben, birçok ünlü ruha, karanlık hapsin içinde, kısa sürede uzun resme bakar gibi, ayak ileri gider hani, göz geriye döner. (aşkın utkusu iii, 139-165)

The DUCE diverted funds intended for the Fiume adventure, and used them for His own election campaign. He was arrested for the illegal possession of arms, sent parcel bombs to the Archbishop of Milan and its mayor, and after election was, as is well-known, responsible for the assassination of Di Vagno and Matteoti. Since then He has been responsible for the murders of Don Mizzoni Amendola, the Rosselli brothers, and the journalist Piero Gobetti, quite apart from the hundreds who have been the victims of His squadistri in Ferrara, Ravenna and Trieste, and the thousands who have perished in foreign places whose conquest was useless and pointless. We Italians remain eternally grateful for this, and consider that so much violence has made us a superior race, just as the introduction of revolvers into Parliament and the complete destruction of constitutional democracy have raised our institutions to the greatest possible heights of civilisation. Since the illegal seizure of power, Italy has known an average of five acts of political violence per diem, the DUCE has decreed that 1922 is the new Annus Domini, and He was pretended to be a Catholic in order to dupe the Holy Father into supporting Him against the Communists, even though He really is one Himself. He has completely suborned the press by wrecking the premises of dissident newspapers and journals. In 1923 he invaded Corfu for no apparent reason, and was forced to withdraw by the League of Nations. In 1924 He gerrymandered the elections, and He has oppressed minorities in the Tyrol and the North-East. He sent our soldiers to take part in the rape of Somalia and Libya, drenching their hands in the blood of innocents, He has doubled the number of the bureaucracy in order to tame the bourgeoisie, He has abolished local government, interfered with the judiciary, and purportedly has divinely stopped the flow of lava on Mt Etna by a mere act of will. He has struck Napoleonic attitudes whilst permitting Himself to be used to advertise Perugina chocolates, He has shaved his head because He is ashamed to be seen to be going bald, He has been obliged to hire a tutor to teach Him table manners, He has introduced the Roman salute as a more hygienic alternative to the handshake, He pretends not to need spectacles, He has a repertoire of only two facial expression, He stands on a concealed podium whilst making speeches because He is so short, He pretends to have studied economics with Pareto, and He has assumed infallibility and encouraged the people to carry His image in marches, as though He were a saint. He is a saint, of course. He has (and who are we to disagree?) declared Himself greater than Aristotle, Kant, Aquinas, Dante, Michelangelo, Washington, Lincoln, and Bonaparte, and He has appointed ministers to serve Him who are all sycophants, renegades, racketeers, placemen, and shorter than He is. He is afraid of the Evil Eye and has abolished the second person singular as a form of address. He has caused Toscanini to be beaten up for refusing to play 'Giovinezza', and He has appointed academicians to prove that all great inventions were originally Italian and that Shakespeare was the pseudonym of an Italian poet. He has built a road through the site of the forum, demolishing fifteen ancient churches, and has ordered a statue of Hercules, eighty metres high, which will have His own visage, and which so far consists of a part of the face and one gigantic foot, and which cannot be completed because it has already used up one hundred tons of metal.

Hundreds of ladybugs had taken shelter from the winter in the crevices of the decayed windows. From there, they broke into the apartment in commando squads. My joy at that first sighting of the ladybug spreading its lower winglets on the rim of the jam glass, flashing three spots of fortune, soon turned into something tragic and Greek, a bloodied slaughter. Like in Ajax, I had to pluck ladybugs from my toothbrush every evening and in the morning shake out my shirt that, overnight, was infested with too much luck, and at lunch, I'd fish kamikazee-ladybugs out of my soup bowl, their Etna's crater in the middle of the round kitchen table. When I shut my eyes and held the hose to my ear and heard the little crackle of tiny bodies sucked into the eye of the tornado, I couldn't remain neutral. Putting away the vacuum, I consoled myself with sentences of friends who, after a beer or three, like to repeat to me the axiom that sooner or later, living in the city, each person discovers himself to be the murder of his own happiness. They were genuine Berlin ladybugs, they'd occupied the windows illegally like my friends in apartments from which they were later evicted.

Rumbling Mountains Four active volcanoes shake the southern Apennines. One of these, Mount Vesuvius, lies on the shore of the Bay of Naples. The people who lived near it two thousand years ago didn’t know it was a volcano. Then, in A.D. 79, Vesuvius suddenly blew its top and hot ash filled the sky, burying the city of Pompeii and neighboring towns. Over the centuries, Vesuvius has erupted again from time to time, often with little warning. Mount Etna, on the island of Sicily, is more than three times higher than Vesuvius. It is one of the world’s most active volcanoes, producing frequent lava flows. Italy’s other two active volcanoes, Stromboli and Vulcano, belong to a group of islands called the Aeolians, off the northern coast of Sicily. Earthquakes also strike Italy. In 1693, an estimated one hundred thousand people died in an earthquake in Sicily. The most deadly recent quake in Italy occurred near Naples in 1980. It killed three thousand people.

Poseidon gripped his trident. “In the First War, Percy, Zeus cut our father Kronos into a thousand pieces, just as Kronos had done to his own father, Ouranos. Zeus cast Kronos’s remains into the darkest pit of Tartarus. The Titan army was scattered, their mountain fortress on Etna destroyed, their monstrous allies driven to the farthest corners of the earth. And yet Titans cannot die, any more than we gods can. Whatever is left of Kronos is still alive in some hideous way, still conscious in his eternal pain, still hungering for power.

Although Sicily in July can be a furnace, there can be cool nights by the sea, and up in the hills of Mount Etna. I allow myself to feel a tantalizing hope we might head up there. There is something thrilling about the pull of the volcano towering over the Sicilian coastline, constantly puffing steam and fiery red ash like a sleeping dragon, while farmers and villagers quietly live and work, aware that she can wake at any moment.

I slipped quickly through darkness. A thousand unseen frogs were ribbetting and croaking, a symphony of primal night. I felt like an animal; I ran through the Marble Mountains to my home in the dark woods. The rocks were abrasive pumice, rough and hard like sandpaper, perilous, and yet I felt euphoric, much safer navigating them without light than I had in Etna, in the daylight. I was safe in this world. This was a place for creatures—I felt I had become more of a creature than a girl. I could handle myself in the wild.

Esce dal buio una littorina, bella e disperata come il Sud. È anche lei una bella stella cadente; si porta dietro un soffio di ruggine, erba e salsedine. Sopra il Mediterraneo, poche stelle di nome latino; la geografia del cielo parla arabo e greco. Lo stesso cielo dei Fenici. Sulle navi, i veterani di Annibale oltrepassano l'ombra immensa dell'Aspromonte, avvistano l'Etna in eruzione, girano attorno a Capo Passero, puntano nella notte su Pantelleria. Tornano a casa dopo quindici anni. Devono: Scipione è in Africa, spadroneggia come ha fatto Annibale in Italia. La patria chiama, Annibale parte, e i Romani lo lasciano andare senza nemmeno dargli la caccia in mare. Tutto, purché se ne vada.

Non sapeva, lui che apriva il suo cuore all’aria aperta, che non rispettava altra legge al mondo se non la buona legge di natura, lui che lasciava scorrere le proprie passioni per i loro pendii, e in cui il lago delle grandi emozioni era sempre a secco, poiché vi apriva egli ogni mattina larghi e nuovi canali, non sapeva con quale furia questo mare di passioni umane fermenta e ribolle quando sia impedito a qualunque uscita, come si ammassa, come si gonfia, come deborda, come scava il cuore, come scoppia in singhiozzi interni e in sorde convulsioni fino a che non abbia rotto le dighe e aperto una crepa nel suo letto. L'involucro austero e glaciale di Claude Frollo, la sua fredda superficie di virtù impervia e inaccessibile aveva sempre ingannato Jehan. L'allegro scolaro non aveva mai pensato a quanta lava bollente, furiosa e profonda fosse sotto la fronte innevata dell'Etna.

mountain. “He’s toast!” said Zeus. “Typhon will never trouble us again!” But personally, I had my doubts. After what I’d just seen, I thought Typhon might find a way to escape. But to this day, he hasn’t. Nope, Typhon is still trapped under that mountain, raging and roaring. If you don’t believe me, go to Sicily yourself. Go to Mount Etna. You’ll see an enormous mountain belching smoke, fire, and molten lava. Who else could it be under there but Typhon?

Like so many things in Sicily, the story of winemaking there is one of superb resources, ignorance, greed, mediocrity, neglect, destruction, deliberation, a fresh start and triumph. No one knows that better than

Hephaestus scratched his smoldering beard. “Well, that’s where the monster Typhon is trapped, you know. Used to be under Mount Etna, but when we moved to America, his force got pinned under Mount St. Helens instead. Great source of fire, but a bit dangerous. There’s always a chance he will escape. Lots of eruptions these days, smoldering all the time. He’s restless with the Titan rebellion.” “What do you want us to do?” I said. “Fight him?” Hephaestus snorted. “That would be suicide. The gods themselves ran from Typhon when he was free. No, pray you never have to see him, much less fight him. But lately I have sensed intruders in my mountain. Someone or something is using my forges. When I go there, it is empty, but I can tell it is being used. They sense me coming, and they disappear. I send my automatons to investigate, but they do not return. Something…ancient is there. Evil. I want to know who dares invade my territory, and if they mean to lose Typhon.

You have hardly started living, and yet all is said, all is done. You are only twenty-five, but your path is already mapped out for you. The roles are prepared, and the labels: from the potty of your infancy to the bath-chair of your old age, all the seats are ready and waiting their turn. Your adventures have been so thoroughly described that the most violent revolt would not make anyone turn a hair. Step into the street and knock people's hats off, smear your head with filth, go bare-foot, publish manifestos, shoot at some passing usurper or other, but it won't make any difference: in the dormitory of the asylum your bed is already made up, your place is already laid at the table of the poètes maudits; Rimbaud's drunken boat, what a paltry wonder: Abyssinia is a fairground attraction, a package trip. Everything is arranged, everything is prepared in the minutest detail: the surges of emotion, the frosty irony, the heartbreak, the fullness, the exoticism, the great adventure, the despair. You won't sell your soul to the devil, you won't go clad in sandals to throw yourself into the crater of Mount Etna, you won't destroy the seventh wonder of the world. Everything is ready for your death: the bullet that will end your days was cast long ago, the weeping women who will follow your casket have already been appointed. Why climb to the peak of the highest hills when you would only have to come back down again, and, when you are down, how would you avoid spending the rest of your life telling the story of how you got up there? Why should you keep up the pretence of living? Why should you carry on? Don't you already know everything that will happen to you? Haven't you already been all that you were meant to be: the worthy son of your mother and father, the brave little boy scout, the good pupil who could have done better, the childhood friend, the distant cousin, the handsome soldier, the impoverished young man? Just a little more effort, not even a little more effort, just a few more years, and you will be the middle manager, the esteemed colleague. Good husband, good father, good citizen. War veteran. One by one, you will climb, like a frog, the rungs on the ladder of success. You'll be able to choose, from an extensive and varied range, the personality that best befits your aspirations, it will be carefully tailored to measure: will you be decorated? cultured? an epicure? a physician of body and soul? an animal lover? will you devote your spare time to massacring, on an out-oftune piano, innocent sonatas that never did you any harm? Or will you smoke a pipe in your rocking chair, telling yourself that, all in all, life's been good to you?

worship of even the very great is finally useless, Emerson says: It is one central fire, which, flaming now out of the lips of Etna, lightens the capes of Sicily, and, now out of the throat of Vesuvius, illuminates the towers and vineyards of Naples. It is one light which beams out of a thousand stars. It is one soul which animates all men.13 Emerson’s audience on that last day of August was not the assembly of judges, professors, ministers, school-board members, and other persons who had been institutionalized. It was, as it would henceforward be, the single hearer, the solitary reader, the friend—unknown but always singular—who felt and still may feel personally addressed and shaken by the collar when encountering Emerson’s startling observation that meek young persons “grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke and Bacon were only young men in libraries when they wrote those books.”14

Tu n'as guère vécu, et pourtant, tout est déjà dit, déjà fini. Tu n'as que vingt-cinq ans, mais ta route est toute tracée. Les rôles sont prêts, les étiquettes : du pot de ta première enfance au fauteuil roulant de tes vieux jours, tous les sièges sont là et attendent leur tour. Tes aventures sont si bien décrites que la révolte la plus violente ne ferait sourciller personne. Tu auras beau descendre dans la rue et envoyer dinguer les chapeaux des gens, couvrir ta tête d'immondices, aller nu pieds, publier des manifestes, tirer des coups de revolver au passage d'un quelconque usurpateur, rien n'y fera : ton lit est déjà fait dans le dortoir de l'asile, ton couvert est mis à la table des poètes maudits. Bateau ivre, misérable miracle : le Harrar est une attraction foraine, un voyage organisé. Tout est prévu, tout est préparé dans les moindres détails : les grands élans du cœur, la froide ironie, le déchirement, la plénitude, l'exotisme, la grande aventure, le désespoir. Tu ne vendras pas ton âme au diable, tu n'iras pas, sandales aux pieds, te jeter dans l'Etna, tu ne détruiras pas la septième merveille du monde. Tout est déjà prêt pour ta mort : le boulet qui t'emportera est depuis longtemps fondu, les pleureuses sont déjà désignées pour suivre ton cercueil.

I followed them in every foreign land where they work hard, and suffer, where they sigh and if in trenches they as soldiers stand. Once they have met me they can’t say goodbye. Because the way I talk, they like to swear, brings smells of home: pistachio nuts, a hint of shelled, dry almonds, rows of prickly pears, of orange blossoms and of calamint; of our green sea where tuna boats stand ready, of relatives, of lovers, and of wives, Mount Etna, the Red Mountain, Mumpileri, and our night sky when it is clear and bright... I bring them all the passions, so they say, Sicilians harbor in their fiery hearts, those hearts that seem incapable of joy because they constantly torment themselves. For someone like myself, to the wheel tied, mean mother, is it not enough, I say, that I roam round the world without a guide and earn without much art your weekly pay? The Author Forgive me, dear Centona, I apologize! My senses were impaired when I began; What you keep giving me is a great prize I value more than some relationships with man.

Thule, the period of cosmography, Doth vaunt of Hecla, whose sulfurous fire Doth melt the frozen clime and thaw the sky; Trinacrian Etna's flames ascend no higher: These things seem wondrous, yet more wondrous I, Whose heart with fear doth freeze, with love doth fry. The Andalusian merchant, that returns Laden with cochineal and china dishes, Reports in Spain how strangely Fogo burns Amidst an ocean full of flying fishes: These things seem wondrous, yet more wondrous I, Whose heart with fear doth freeze, with love doth fry.

Apenas has vivido y sin embargo ya está todo dicho, terminado. Sólo tienes veinticinco años pero tu senda está toda trazada. Los roles asignados, las etiquetas: del orinal de tu primera infancia a la silla de ruedas de tu vejez, todos los asientos están ahí y esperan tu turno. Tus aventuras están tan bien descritas que la revolución más violenta no haría pestañar a nadie. Da igual que bajes la calle lanzando por ahí los sombreros de la gente, cubriéndote la cabeza de basura, descalzo, publicando manifiestos, disparando con un revólver al paso de cualquier usurpador: tu cama ya está hecha en el dormitorio del asilo, tus cubiertos dispuestos en la mesa de los poetas malditos. Barco ebrio, milagro miserable: Harare es una atracción de feria, un viaje organizado. Todo está previsto, todo está preparado hasta el menor detalle: los grandes impulsos del corazón, la fría ironía, la aflicción, la plenitud, el exotismo, la gran aventura, la desesperación. No le venderás tu alma al diablo, no irás, en sandalias, a arrojarte al Etna, no destruirás la séptima maravilla del mundo. Todo está ya preparado para tu muerte: la bala que acabará contigo se fundió hace mucho, las plañideras ya han sido designadas para seguir tu ataúd.

Spells? Mistrust them. Mind is the spell which governs earth and heaven. Man has a mind with which to plan his safety. Know that, and help thyself. Empedocles on Etna: Act I, Scene II

Tis not the times, 'Tis not the Sophists vex him: There is some root of suffering in himself, Some secret and unfollow'd vein of woe, Which makes the times look black and sad to him. Empedocles on Etna: Act I, Scene I

Is it so small a thing To have enjoy'd the sun, To have liv'd light in the spring, To have lov'd, to have thought, to have done; To have advanc'd true friends, and beat down baffling foes; That we must feign a bliss Of doubtful future date, And while we dream on this Lose our present state, And relegate to worlds yet distant our repose? Empedocles on Etna: Act I, Scene II

Etna filed an unsuccessful suit against McDonald’s, claiming that her husband’s rampage was caused by eating too many hamburgers and Chicken McNuggets—that the high levels of monosodium glutamate they contained interacted with the lead and cadmium he had built up in his system during his years as a welder.

If Italian engineers have understood anything,” she told me once, “it’s the significance and construction of the horn. Because the horn is the voice and the heart and soul of any vehicle. The vehicle wants to cut a good figure, wants to sound good without being intrusive or making anyone look foolish. A German horn, by contrast, is always a declaration of war—it suggests that invading troops are already massing on the frontier, so to speak. An Italian horn sounds like a friendly clearing of the throat, a gentle ‘Permesso?’ or ‘Oh, signore, would you mind waiting? I’m afraid I have the right of way, grazie, molto gentile.’ With an Italian horn you can compliment a traffic cop on his beautiful eyes. You can even—don’t laugh!—make a proposal of marriage with an Italian horn. And the loveliest horn in the world is still the Vespa’s, which defies comparison.

the blue trouser suit,

Lack of imagination is the little sister of timidity.

Is there no life, but these alone? Madman or slave, must man be one?

to talk at length about her mother and father, whom she has not seen since their deaths in the late 1800s. The greatest insight to emerge from those sessions was that Etna

Etna know to be true, since Dr. Little seldom speaks during her time with him. He will neither confirm nor deny her insights, a practice that invariably makes her more anxious when she leaves his office than when

Death is a finality; you can never recoup the loss. There will always be something unique about that individual, their wit, charm, the way they smiled or the way they made you smile, hell, even their silence when others spoke. Those people aren’t just gone; when they go they take something from you as well, something tangible, it can never be replaced. That’s why they say you “miss” them; there’s something missing now besides another body. How many holes can you have in your heart before you begin to bleed out?