Jorge Luis Borges - Tumblr Posts

An’lar

Sil baştan yaşama şansım olsaydı eğer,

oturup saymazdım eski yanlışlarımı.

Kusursuz olmaya çalışmaz, rahat bırakırdım yüreğimi.

Neşeli olurdum, geçmişte olmadığım kadar,

ve elbette çok daha coşkulu olurdu sevdalarım,

içine de yeterince ciddiyet katardım.

Bu denli temiz, titiz olmazdım hiç, öyle bir şansım olsaydı eğer.

Hiç çekinmezdim daha fazla riske girmekten de…

Daha çok yolculuklara çıkar, gündoğumlarını kaçırmazdım asla;

hele dağlara tırmanmanın, ırmaklarda yüzmenin keyfini…

Hiç bilmediğim yerlere giderdim, gidebildiğimce.

Doyasıya dondurma yer, boşverirdim kuru nimetlere.

Öyle bir şansım olsaydı eğer, dertlerim de

yalnızca düşlerin değil, yaşamın gerçeğini taşırdı.

İşte onlardan biriydim ben ömrü boyunca hani, her saniyesini

verimli kılmaya çalışan insanlardan biri.

Ama aynı an’lara yeniden geri dönebilseydim eğer,

yalnızca iyi ve güzel olanları tatmak isterdim, mutlu an’ları…

Farkında değilseniz hâlâ, öğrenin artık:

Yaşam an’lardan oluşur, sadece anlardan, ŞİMDİ’yi yakalayın.

Yanında termometresi, bir şişe suyu, şemsiyesi

ve paraşütsüz yerinden kıpırdamayan bir insandım ben.

Ama yeni baştan yaşayabilseydim eğer,

yüksüz, iyice hafiflemiş olarak çıkardım yolculuklara.

İlkbahara yalınayak girer, sonbahara dek unuturdum ayakkabıyı.

Hiç bilinmeyen yolları keşfeder, tadına varırdım günışığının,

Çocuklarla daha çok oynardım, yeniden bir şansım olsaydı eğer…

Ama ne çare.. İş işten geçmiş ne yazık ki!

85’indeyim artık ve biliyorum ki… Ölmekteyim.

coming out of the maze and i've been doing just fine

September 29th 2023 16:35 pm [Friday] C'mon guys! Try lens... He's my favorite poet of all time...

"Buscar la serenidad me parece una ambición más razonable que buscar la felicidad. Y quizás la serenidad sea una forma de felicidad".

Jorge Luis Borges

Que será que hasta siento que me pierdo 🖋

Jorge Luis Borges, The House of Asterion, 1947

Reader's note: I don't think The Minotaur's name was as widely known back then as it is now. The identity of the narrator, apart from their name, was intended to be a mystery. The ending paragraph reveals Asterion's character and recontextualizes the story, prompting a second read.

Asterion, likewise, never identifies themself as a monster and never calls his home a labyrinth. He believes he is shunned because of his noble birth, and maintains a youthful innocence throughout his incarceration.

I got this version from:

https://klasrum.weebly.com/uploads/9/0/9/1/9091667/the_house_of_asterion.pdf

It was originally published in Spanish.

Writer Jorge Luis Borges with Bread Basket on His Head

“Every single thing becomes a word in a language that Someone or Something, night and day, writes down in a never-ending scribble, which is the history of the world, embracing. Rome, Carthage, you, me, everyone, my life, which I do not understand, this anguish of being enigma, accident, and puzzle, and all the discordant languages of Babel. Behind each name lies that which has no name. Today I feel its nameless shadow tremble in the blue clarity of the compass needle, whose rule extends as far as the far seas, something like a clock glimpsed in a dream or a bird that stirs suddenly in its sleep.”

— Jorge Luis Borges: A Compass.

Read Blindness by Jorge Luis Borges in its entirety here, 

& here’s a free link to his Collected Fictions, too. 

Susana Soca

With lingering love she gazed at the dispersed Colors of dusk. It pleased her utterly To lose herself in the complex melody Or in the cunous life to be found in verse. lt was not the primal red but rather grays That spun the fine thread of her destiny, For the nicest distinctions and all spent In waverings, ambiguities, delays. Lacking the nerve to tread this treacherous Labyrinth, she looked in on, whom without, The shapes, the turbulence, the striving rout, (Like the other lady of the looking glass.) The gods that dwell too far away for prayer Abandoned her to the final tiger, Fire.

– Jorge Luis Borges

“The other one, the one called Borges, is the one things happen to. I walk through the streets of Buenos Aires and stop for a moment, perhaps mechanically now, to look at the arch of an entrance hall and the grillwork on the gate; I know of Borges from the mail and see his name on a list of professors or in a biographical dictionary. I like hourglasses, maps, eighteenth-century typography, the taste of coffee and the prose of Stevenson; he shares these preferences, but in a vain way that turns them into the attributes of an actor. It would be an exaggeration to say that ours is a hostile relationship; I live, let myself go on living, so that Borges may contrive his literature, and this literature justifies me. It is no effort for me to confess that he has achieved some valid pages, but those pages cannot save me, perhaps because what is good belongs to no one, not even to him, but rather to the language and to tradition. Besides, I am destined to perish, definitively, and only some instant of myself can survive in him. Little by little, I am giving over everything to him, though I am quite aware of his perverse custom of falsifying and magnifying things. Spinoza knew that all things long to persist in their being; the stone eternally wants to be a stone and the tiger a tiger. I shall remain in Borges, not in myself (if it is true that I am someone), but I recognize myself less in his books than in many others or in the laborious strumming of a guitar. Years ago I tried to free myself from him and went from the mythologies of the suburbs to the games with time and infinity, but those games belong to Borges now and I shall have to imagine other things. Thus my life is a flight and I lose everything and everything belongs to oblivion, or to him. I do not know which of us has written this page.”

— Jorge Luis Borges, “Borges and I” (via tristealven)

“Persian, the language of birds and roses,”

— Jorge Luis Borges, tr. by Alastair Reid, from “Limits,”

Eğer yeniden başlayabilseydim

 2. Ses denemem  🌌

Time forks perpetually toward innumerable futures. In one of them I am your enemy.

Jorge Luis Borges, The Garden of Forking Paths

Oh, lord, he just picked up the complete fictions of Jorge Luis Borges. He’s going to be here a while…But the resulting conversation should be interesting! (Lots of references to labyrinths in Borges’s works. I’ll recommend his collected nonfiction next.)

Hello! First off, just wanted to say I really enjoy your writing! Could I please request headcanons on forming a friendship with pinhead (despite how strange it would be). Recently watched the film for the first time and it’s been rotting my brain for a hot minute. Thank you!

<3

It's an odd situation

He's never had a "friend" before

It's just not something you come by in the labyrinth

Of course when he first met you, all intentions were to kill you

But somehow someway you were able to go around the whole killing thing

You, besides most people, would actually, on a regular basis have real conversations with him

You'd even go out of your way to talk to him in situations where others would take the opportunity to run for the hills

He sees the way you will look at him, as if fear is not a factor

He is on some level relieved your not trying to immediately form a romantic relationship with him

He is more than willing to try out this whole friendship thing

He does warn you straight up at the start that he is not emotionally there

He feel no emotion, no remorse none of that

You gave got to give him credit for at least warning you on the facts

He may not feel remorse, happiness or sadness

He does, in his own cenobite way, show "kindness"

He does like talking and will on occasion go to your home and read

He will literally read a book in your home for however long it takes to read the whole thing

He has the time and doesn't need breaks, so just expect him to be there in the morning when you leave and to be there when you get back

Plus he's actually very informative and will tell you things and share facts about the things your doing

In a way he's helping you but doesn't understand the concept

He's getting used to the idea of being a "friend", give him some time, he'll get there eventually

“So plant your own gardens and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.”

— Jorge Luis Borges

..la tua assenza mi circonda...

La felicità.

Chi abbraccia una donna è Adamo. La donna è Eva. Tutto accade per la prima volta. Ho visto una cosa bianca in cielo. Mi dicono che è la luna, ma che posso fare con una parola e con una mitologia?

Gli alberi mi fanno un poco paura. Sono così belli. I tranquilli animali si avvicinano perché io gli dica il loro nome. I libri della biblioteca sono senza lettere. Se li apro appaiono. Sfogliando l’Atlante progetto la forma di Sumatra.

Chi accende un fiammifero al buio sta inventando il fuoco. Nello specchio c’è un altro che spia. Chi guarda il mare vede l’Inghilterra. Chi pronuncia un verso di Liliencron partecipa alla battaglia.

Ho sognato Cartagine e le legioni che desolarono Cartagine. Ho sognato la spada e la bilancia. Sia lodato l’amore che non ha né possessore né posseduta, ma entrambi si donano. Sia lodato l’incubo che ci rivela che possiamo creare l’Inferno.

Chi si bagna in un fiume si bagna nel Gange. Chi guarda una clessidra vede la dissoluzione di un impero. Chi maneggia un pugnale prevede la morte di Cesare. Chi dorme è tutti gli uomini.

Ho visto nel deserto la giovane Sfinge appena scolpita. Non c’è nulla di antico sotto il sole. Tutto accade per la prima volta, ma in un modo eterno. Chi legge le mie parole sta inventandole.

Jorge Luis Borges

L’artefice

Siamo il fiume che invocasti, Eraclito. Siamo il tempo. Il suo corso intangibile Va trascinando leoni e montagne, Lacrime d’amore, cenere del piacere, Insidiosa speranza interminabile, Lunghi elenchi di regni che son polvere, Esametri dei greci e dei latini, Lugubre un mare al sorgere dell’alba, Il sogno, questo assaggio della morte, Il guerriero e le armi, monumenti, I due volti di Giano che s’ignorano, I labirinti di avorio tramati Dalle pedine sopra la scacchiera, La rossa mano di Macbeth che può Insanguinare i mari, la segreta Fatica degli orologi nell’ombra, Un incessante specchio che si guarda In un altro e nessuno che li veda, Bulinate incisioni, segni gotici, Una sbarra di zolfo in un armadio, Opprimenti rintocchi dell’insonnia, Aurore e crepuscoli e tramonti Echi, risacca, sabbia, lichene, sogni.

Altro non sono che codeste immagini Che il caso mescola e che il tedio nomina. Con esse, benché cieco e frantumato, Devo limare il verso incorruttibile E (mio dovere) salvarmi.

Jorge Luis Borges

...Parlo dell’unico, dell’uno, di colui che sempre è solo...

Dream

by Jorge Luis Borges tr. Alastair Reid

If dreaming really were a kind of truce (as people claim), a sheer repose of mind, why then if you should waken up abruptly, do you feel that something has been stolen from you? Why should it be so sad, the early morning? It robs us of an inconceivable gift, so intimate it is only knowable in a trance which the nightwatch gilds with dreams, dreams that might very well be reflections, fragments from the treasure-house of darkness, from the timeless sphere that does not have a name, and that the day distorts in its mirrors. Who will you be tonight in your dreamfall into the dark, on the other side of the wall?