Saturday, January 29, 2011

She and him:



«(...) Then Jupiter turned to them and spoke, smiling at them: "You good old man, with a wife who is worthy of you, ask me for any gift which you would like to have."
Philemon consulted with Baucis for a moment then told the gods what they had decided upon together. "What we ask", he said, "is that we may be your priests and look after your temple. And since we have always lived happily together, let us both die at the same moment, so that I shall never have to see my wife's tomb, nor will she have to attend my funeral."
The gods granted his prayer. While life was allowed to them, they guarded the temple. And when, worn out with extreme old age, they were standing one day in front of the holy building and talking about their adventures, Baucis suddenly noticed that leaves were growing on Philemon's body and old Philemon noticed that leaves were growing on Baucis too. Bark began to form all over them, but before it reached their faces, they both cried out together and at the same time, "Good-bye, dear wife," and "Good-bye, dear husband." Then the bark closed over them and covered their lips.

To this very day the peasants in this part of the world will show you two trees growing close together with their two trunks wound round each other. I myself have seen the garlands hanging from their boughs and hung a garland there too, saying, as I did so: "Those who loved the gods have become gods themselves. They worshiped Heaven, and now they must themselves be worshiped."»




"Baucis and Philemon", in Men and Gods
Rex Warner / Edward Gorey
New York Review Books
2007

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