Virginia Woolf, Aeschylus translated brings despair

From Mrs. Dalloway

         HERE he opened Shakespeare once more. That boy's business of the intoxication of language—Antony and Cleopatra—had shrivelled utterly. How Shakespeare loathed humanity—the putting on of clothes, the getting of children, the sordidity of the mouth and the belly! This was now revealed to Septimus; the message hidden in the beauty of words. The secret signal which one generation passes, under disguise, to the next is loathing, hatred, despair. Dante the same. Aeschylus (translated) the same. There Rezia sat at the table trimming hats. She trimmed hats for Mrs. Filmer’s friends; she trimmed hats by the hour. She looked pale, mysterious, like a lily, drowned, under water, he thought.

   Cf.  Woolf : The most modern thing you ever saw & They sang from trees in the meadow of life  Papacy

Listen to Virginia Woolf's 1929 "Eulogy to words: Words don't live in dictionaries, they live in the mind" (BBC, 7'29'') - needs RealPlayer.

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