Marcel Marceau

...

Galeria (65)

Edvard Hagerup Grieg (1843 - 1907)

Começos... (48)

Mon cher Marc,

Je suis descendu ce matin chez mon médecin Hermogène, qui vient de rentrer à la Villa après un assez long voyage en Asie. L'examen devait se faire à jeun: nous avions pris rendez-vous pour les premières heures de la matinée. Je me suis couché sur un lit après m'être dépouillé de mon manteau et de ma tunique. Je t'épargne des détails qui te seraient aussi désagréables qu'à moi-même, et la description du corps d'un homme qui avance en âge et s'apprêtre à mourir d'une hydropisie du coeur. Disons seulement que j'ai toussé, respiré, et retenu mon souffle selon les indications d'Hermogène, alarmé malgré lui par les progrès si rapides du mal, et prêt à en rejeter le blâme sur le jeune Iollas qui m'a soigné en son absence. Il est difficile de rester empereur em présence d'un médecin, et difficile aussi de garder sa qualité d'homme. L'oeil du praticien ne voyait en moi qu'un monceau d'humeurs, triste amalgame de lymphe et de sang. Ce matin, l'idée m'est venue pour la première foi que mon corps, ce fidèle compagnon, cet ami plus sûr, mieux connu de moi que mon âme, n'est q'un monstre sournois qui finira par dévorer son maître. Paix... J'aime mon corps; il m'a bien servi, et de toutes les façons, et je ne lui marchande pas les soins nécessaires. Mais je ne compte plus, comme Hermogène prétend encore le faire, sur les vertus merveilleuses des plantes, le dosage exact de sels minéraux qu'il est allé chercher en Orient. Cet homme pourtant si fin m'a débité de vagues formules de réconfort, trop banales pour tromper personne; il sait combien je hais ce genre d'imposture, mais on n'a pas impunément exercé la médecine pendant plus de trente ans. Je pardonne à ce bon serviteur cette tentative pour me cacher ma mort. Hermogène est savant; il est même sage; sa probité est bien supérieure à celle d'un vulgaire médecin de cour. J'aurai pour lot d'être le plus soigné des malades. Mais nul ne peut dépasser les limites prescrites; mes jambes enflées ne me soutiennent plus pendant les longues cérémonies romaines; je suffoque; et j'ai soixante ans.

MARGUERITE YOURCENAR, Mémoires d'Hadrien [1951]

Galeria (64)

Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo (1899 - 1986)

Para ler em voz alta (52)

The Robin

When up aloft
I fly and fly,
I see in pools
The shining sky,
And a happy bird
Am I, am I!

When I descend
Toward the brink
I stand and look
And stop and drink
And bathe my wings,
And chink, and prink.

When winter frost
Makes earth as steel,
I search and search
But find no meal,
And most unhappy
Then I feel.

But when it lasts,
And snows still fall,
I get to feel
No grief at all
For I turn to a cold, stiff
Feathery ball!

THOMAS HARDY [1901]

Galeria (63)

Frances Ethel Gumm, alias Judy Garland (1922 - 1969)

Começos... (47)

The last drops of the thundershower had hardly ceased falling when the Pedestrian stuffed his map into his pocket, settled his pack more comfortably on his tired shoulders, and stepped out from the shelter of a large chestnut tree into the middle of the road. A violet yellow sunset was pouring through a rift in the clouds to westward, but straight ahead over the hills the sky was the colour of dark slate. Every tree and blade of grass was dripping, and the road shone like a river. The Pedestrian wasted no time on the landscape but set out at once with the determined stride of a good walker who has lately realised that he will have to walk farther than he intended. That, indeed, was his situation. If he had chosen to look back, which he did not, he could have seen the spire of Much Nadderby, and, seeing it, might have uttered a malediction on the inhospitable little hotel which, though obviously empty, had refused him a bed. The place had changed hands since he last went for a walking tour in these parts. The kindly old landlord on whom he had reckoned had been replaced by someone whom the barmaid referred to as ‘the lady’, and the lady was apparently a British innkeeper of that orthodox school who regard guests as a nuisance. His only chance now was Sterk, on the far side of the hills, and a good six miles away. The map marked an inn at Sterk. The Pedestrian was too experienced to build any very sanguine hopes on this, but there seemed nothing else within range.
He walked fairly fast, and doggedly, without looking much about him, like a man trying to shorten the way with some interesting train of thought. He was tall, but a little round-shouldered, about thirty-five to forty years of age, and dressed with that particular kind of shabbiness which marks a member of the intelligentsia on a holiday. He might easily been mistaken for a doctor or a schoolmaster at first sight, though he had not the man-of-the-world air of the one or the indefinable breeziness of the other. In fact, he was a philologist, and fellow of a Cambridge college. His name was Ransom.

C. S. LEWIS, Out of the Silent Planet [1938]

Galeria (62)

Mircea Eliade (1907 - 1986)

Para ler em voz alta (51)

The Parable of the Old Man and the Young

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,

And took the fire with him, and a knife.

And as they sojourned both of them together,

Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,

Behold the preparations, fire and iron,

But where the lamb, for this burnt-offering?

Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,

And builded parapets and trenches there,

And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.

When lo! an Angel called him out of heaven,

Saying, Lay not they hand upon the lad,

Neither do anything to him, thy son.

Behold! Caught in a thicket by its horns,

A Ram. Offer the Ram of Pride instead.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,

And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

WILFRED OWEN [1916]

Galeria (61)

Wilhelm Kempff (1895 - 1991)

Começos... (46)

Laurence Olivier - 1955

Now is the winter of our discontent,
Made glorious summer by this sonne of Yorke:
And all the cloudes that lowrd vpon our house,
In the deepe bosome of the Ocean buried.
Now are our browes bound with victorious wreathes,
Our bruised armes hung vp for monuments,
Our sterne alarmes changd to merry meetings,
Our dreadfull marches to delightfull measures.
Grim-visagde warre, hath smoothde his wrinkled front,
And now in steed of mounting barbed steedes,
To fright the soules of fearefull aduersaries,
He capers nimbly in a Ladies chamber,
To the lasciuious pleasing of a loue.
But I that am not shapte for sportiue trickes,
Nor made to court an amorous looking glasse,
I that am rudely stampt and want loues maiesty,
To strut before a wanton ambling Nymph:
I that am curtaild of this faire proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformd, vnfinisht, sent before my time
Into this breathing world scarce halfe made vp,
And that so lamely and vnfashionable,
That dogs barke at me as I halt by them:
Why I in this weake piping time of peace
Haue no delight to passe away the time,
Vnlesse to spie my shadow in the sunne,
And descant on mine owne deformity:
And therefore since I cannot prooue a louer
To entertaine these faire well spoken daies.
I am determined to prooue a villaine,
And hate the idle pleasures of these daies:
Plots haue I laid inductious dangerous,
By drunken Prophesies, libels and dreames,
To set my brother Clarence and the King
In deadly hate the one against the other.
And if King Edward be as true and iust,
As I am subtile, false, and trecherous:
This day should Clarence closely be mewed vp,
About a Prophecy which saies that G.
Of Edwards heires the murtherers shall be.
Diue thoughts downe to my soule,
Heere Clarence comes,
Brother, good dayes, what meanes this armed gard
That waites vpon your grace?

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, The Tragedy of King Richard the third [1592-93]

Galeria (60)

Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936)

Les Hébreux

De tous les anciens peuples, on ne connaît que les Hébreux qui aient eu des dogmes publics de leur religion. Abraham et Moïse ont établi la croyance d’un seul Dieu, source de tout bien, auteur de toutes choses. Les Hébreux en parlent d’une manière très digne de la souveraine substance, et on est surpris de voir des habitants d’un petit canton de la terre plus éclairés que le reste du genre humain. Les sages d’autres nations en ont peut-être dit autant quelquefois, mais ils n’ont pas eu le bonheur de se faire suivre assez et de faire passer le dogme en loi.

GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ, Essais de Théodicée, "Préface" [1710]

GALERIA (59)

Leslie Howard Stainer (1893 - 1943)

Para ler em voz alta (50)

On a Drop of Dew

See how the Orient Dew,

Shed from the Bosom of the Morn

Into the blowing Roses,

Yet careless of its Mansion new;

For the clear Region where 'twas born

Round in its self incloses:

And in its little Globes Extent,

Frames as it can its native Element.

How it the purple flow'r does slight,

Scarce touching where it lyes,

But gazing back upon the Skies,

Shines with a mournful Light;

Like its own Tear,

Because so long divided from the Sphear.

Restless it roules and unsecure,

Trembling lest it grow impure:

Till the warm Sun pitty it's Pain,

And to the Skies exhale it back again.

So the Soul, that Drop, that Ray

Of the clear Fountain of Eternal Day,

Could it within the humane flow'r be seen,

Remembring still its former height,

Shuns the sweat leaves and blossoms green;

And, recollecting its own Light,

Does, in its pure and circling thoughts, express

The greater Heaven in an Heaven less.

In how coy a Figure wound,

Every way it turns away:

So the World excluding round,

Yet receiving in the Day.

Dark beneath, but bright above:

Here disdaining, there in Love.

How loose and easie hence to go:

How girt and ready to ascend.

Moving but on a point below,

It all about does upwards bend.

Such did the Manna's sacred Dew destil;

White, and intire, though congeal'd and chill.

Congeal'd on Earth: but does, dissolving, run

Into the Glories of th' Almighty Sun.

ANDREW MARVELL [1652?]

GALERIA (58)

[por Frans Hals]

René Descartes (1596 - 1650)

Começos... (45)

Pfingsten, das liebliche Fest, war gekommen! es grünten und blühten

Feld und Wald; auf Hügeln und Höhn, in Büschen und Hecken

Übten ein fröhliches Lied die neuermunterten Vögel;

Jede Wiese sproßte von Blumen in duftenden Gründen,

Festlich heiter glänzte der Himmel und farbig die Erde.

Nobel, der König, versammelt den Hof; und seine Vasallen

Eilen gerufen herbei mit großem Gepränge; da kommen

Viele stolze Gesellen von allen Seiten und Enden,

Lütke, der Kranich, und Markart, der Häher, und alle die Besten.

Denn der König gedenkt mit allen seinen Baronen

Hof zu halten in Feier und Pracht; er läßt sie berufen

Alle miteinander, so gut die Großen als Kleinen.

Niemand sollte fehlen! und dennoch fehlte der Eine,

Reineke Fuchs, der Schelm! der viel begangenen Frevels

Halben des Hofs sich enthielt. So scheuet das böse Gewissen

Licht und Tag, es scheute der Fuchs die versammelten Herren.

Alle hatten zu klagen, er hatte sie alle beleidigt,

Und nur Grimbart, den Dachs, den Sohn des Bruders, verschont' er.

JOHANN WOLFGANG GOETHE, Reineke Fuchs [1794]

GALERIA (57)

Otto Klemperer (1885 - 1973)

A Christmas Tree

VIGGO JOHANSEN, Glade Jul (1891)

I have been looking on, this evening, at a merry company of children assembled round that pretty German toy, a Christmas Tree. The tree was planted in the middle of a great round table, and towered high above their heads. It was brilliantly lighted by a multitude of little tapers; and everywhere sparkled and glittered with bright objects. There were rosy-cheeked dolls, hiding behind the green leaves; and there were real watches (with movable hands, at least, and an endless capacity of being wound up) dangling from innumerable twigs; there were French-polished tables, chairs, bedsteads, wardrobes, eight-day clocks, and various other articles of domestic furniture (wonderfully made, in tin, at Wolverhampton), perched among the boughs, as if in preparation for some fairy housekeeping; there were jolly, broad-faced little men, much more agreeable in appearance than many real men—and no wonder, for their heads took off, and showed them to be full of sugar-plums; there were fiddles and drums; there were tambourines, books, work-boxes, paint-boxes, sweetmeat-boxes, peep-show boxes, and all kinds of boxes; there were trinkets for the elder girls, far brighter than any grown-up gold and jewels; there were baskets and pincushions in all devices; there were guns, swords, and banners; there were witches standing in enchanted rings of pasteboard, to tell fortunes; there were teetotums, humming-tops, needle-cases, pen-wipers, smelling-bottles, conversation-cards, bouquet-holders; real fruit, made artificially dazzling with gold leaf; imitation apples, pears, and walnuts, crammed with surprises; in short, as a pretty child, before me, delightedly whispered to another pretty child, her bosom friend, “There was everything, and more.” This motley collection of odd objects, clustering on the tree like magic fruit, and flashing back the bright looks directed towards it from every side—some of the diamond-eyes admiring it were hardly on a level with the table, and a few were languishing in timid wonder on the bosoms of pretty mothers, aunts, and nurses—made a lively realisation of the fancies of childhood; and set me thinking how all the trees that grow and all the things that come into existence on the earth, have their wild adornments at that well-remembered time.

Being now at home again, and alone, the only person in the house awake, my thoughts are drawn back, by a fascination which I do not care to resist, to my own childhood. I begin to consider, what do we all remember best upon the branches of the Christmas Tree of our own young Christmas days, by which we climbed to real life.

CHARLES DICKENS [1850]

GALERIA (56)

Edmondo de Amicis (1846 - 1908)

Para ler em voz alta (49)

Hear and attend and listen; for this befell and behappened and became and was, O my Best Beloved, when the Tame animals were wild. The Dog was wild, and the Horse was wild, and the Cow was wild, and the Sheep was wild, and the Pig was wild—as wild as wild could be—and they walked in the Wet Wild Woods by their wild lones. But the wildest of all the wild animals was the Cat. He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him.

RUDYARD KIPLING, "The Cat that Walked by Himself" [1902]

GALERIA (55)

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (1899 - 1980)

Começos... (44)

Ich starrte auf das Schiff. Es lag ein Stück vom Quai entfernt, grell beleuchtet, im Tejo. Obschon ich seit einer Woche in Lissabon war, hatte ich mich noch immer nicht an das sorglose Licht dieser Stadt gewöhnt. In den Ländern, aus denen ich kam, lagen die Städte nachts schwarz da wie Kohlengruben, und eine Laterne in der Dunkelheit war gefährlicher als die Pest im Mittelalter. Ich kam aus dem Europa des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts.

ERICH MARIA REMARQUE, Die Nacht von Lissabon [1962]

GALERIA (54)

Sir Alexander Fleming (1881 - 1955)

Para ler em voz alta (48)

Lines Written in Kensington Gardens

In this lone, open glade I lie,
Screen'd by deep boughs on either hand;
And at its end, to stay the eye,
Those black-crown'd, red-boled pine-trees stand!

Birds here make song, each bird has his,
Across the girdling city's hum.
How green under the boughs it is!
How thick the tremulous sheep-cries come!

Sometimes a child will cross the glade
To take his nurse his broken toy;
Sometimes a thrush flit overhead
Deep in her unknown day's employ.

Here at my feet what wonders pass,
What endless, active life is here!
What blowing daisies, fragrant grass!
An air-stirr'd forest, fresh and clear.

Scarce fresher is the mountain-sod
Where the tired angler lies, stretch'd out,
And, eased of basket and of rod,
Counts his day's spoil, the spotted trout.

In the huge world, which roars hard by,
Be others happy if they can!
But in my helpless cradle I
Was breathed on by the rural Pan.

I, on men's impious uproar hurl'd,
Think often, as I hear them rave,
That peace has left the upper world
And now keeps only in the grave.

Yet here is peace for ever new!
When I who watch them am away,
Still all things in this glade go through
The changes of their quiet day.

Then to their happy rest they pass!
The flowers upclose, the birds are fed,
The night comes down upon the grass,
The child sleeps warmly in his bed.

Calm soul of all things! make it mine
To feel, amid the city's jar,
That there abides a peace of thine,
Man did not make, and cannot mar.

The will to neither strive nor cry,
The power to feel with others give!
Calm, calm me more! nor let me die
Before I have begun to live.

MATTHEW ARNOLD [1852]

GALERIA (53)

Robert Alexander Schumann (1810 - 1856)

Para ler em voz alta (47)

Alma minha gentil, que te partiste
Tão cedo desta vida, descontente,
Repousa lá no Céu eternamente
E viva eu cá na terra sempre triste.

Se lá no assento etéreo, onde subiste,
Memória desta vida se consente,
Não te esqueças daquele amor ardente
Que já nos olhos meus tão puro viste.

E se vires que pode merecer-te
Alguma cousa a dor que me ficou
Da mágoa, sem remédio, de perder-te,

Roga a Deus, que teus anos encurtou,
Que tão cedo de cá me leve a ver-te,
Quão cedo de meus olhos te levou.

LUÍS DE CAMÕES [s.d.]

Galeria (52)

Henry Graham Greene (1904 - 1991)

Para ler em voz alta (46)

Leaves from eternity are simple things
To the worlds gaze where to a spirit clings
Sublime and lasting – trampled underfoot
The daisy lives and strikes its little root
Into the lap of time – centuries may come
And pass away into the silent tomb
And still the child hid in the womb of time
Shall smile and pluck them when this simple rhyme
Shall be forgotten like a church-yard stone
Or lingering lye unnoticed and alone
When eighteen hundred years our common date
Grows many thousands in their marching state
Aye still the child with pleasure in his eye
Shall cry the daisy a familiar cry
And run to pluck it – in the selfsame state
As when time found it in his infant date
And like a child himself when all was new
Wonder might smile and make him notice too

JOHN CLARE [1835]

Galeria (51)

Joan Greenwood (1921 - 1987)