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I really enjoy your articles! Thank you!

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Du Bellay? A translation by Anthony Hecht

Hereux Qui, Comme Ulysse A Fait Un Beau Voyage

Great joy be to the sailor if he chart

The Odyssey or bear aware the Fleece

Yet unto wisdom's laurel and the peace

Of his own kind come lastly to his start.

And when shall I, being migrant, bring my heart

Home to its plots of parsley, its proper earth,

Pot hooks, cow dung, black chimney bricks whose worth

I have not skill to honor in my art.

My home, my father's and grandfather's home.

Not the imperial porphyry of Rome

But slate is my true stone, slate is my blue.

And bluer the Loire is to my reckoning

Than Caesar's Tiber, and more nourishing

Than salt spray is the breathing of Anjou.

(after Du Bellay)

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I am just imagining riding a horse from Paris to Italy in good health and how much of a challenge it would be but to do it when suffering with spinal tuberculosis must have been incredibly difficult and painful with the constant jarring and jolting when sitting on the horse. What a very tough individual he must have been if it was him, it puts all of my minor aches to shame.

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I’m in pain from imagining riding from Dallas to Fort Worth, and that’s only about 40 miles!

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