Triumph of Achilles
Louise Glück
Top 10 Best Quotes
“Why love what you will lose? There is nothing else to love.”
“In his tent, Achilles grieved with his whole being and the gods saw he was a man already dead, a victim of the part that loved, the part that was mortal.”
“Because you were foolish enough to love one place, now you are homeless, an orphan in a succession of shelters. You did not prepare yourself sufficiently. Before your eyes, two people were becoming old; I could have told you two deaths were coming. There has never been a parent kept alive by a child’s love. Now, of course, it’s too late – you were trapped in the romance of fidelity. You kept going back, clinging to two people you hardly recognized after what they’d endured. If once you could have saved yourself, now that time’s past: you were obstinate, pathetically blind to change. Now you have nothing: for you, home is a cemetery. I’ve seen you press your face against the granite markers – you are the lichen, trying to grow there. But you will not grow, you will not let yourself obliterate anything.”
“Marathon 2. Song of the River Once we were happy, we had no memories. For all the repetition, nothing happened twice. We were always walking parallel to a river with no sense of progression though the trees across from us were sometimes birch, sometimes cypress- the sky was blue, a matrix of blue glass. While, in the river, things were going by- a few leaves, a child's boat painted red and white, its sail stained by the water- As they passed, on the surface we could see ourselves; we seemed to drift apart and together, as the river linked us forever, though up ahead were other couples, choosing souvenirs.”
“The Mountain My students look at me expectantly. I explain to them that the life of art is a life of endless labor. Their expressions hardly change; they need to know a little more about endless labor. So I tell them the story of Sisyphus, how he was doomed to push a rock up a mountain, knowing nothing would come of this effort but that he would repeat it indefinitely. I tell them there is joy in this, in the artist’s life, that one eludes judgment, and as I speak I am secretly pushing a rock myself, slyly pushing it up the steep face of a mountain. Why do I lie to these children? They aren’t listening, they aren’t deceived, their fingers tapping at the wooden desks— So I retract the myth; I tell them it occurs in hell, and that the artist lies because he is obsessed with attainment, that he perceives the summit as that place where he will live forever, a place about to be transformed by his burden: with every breath, I am standing at the top of the mountain. Both my hands are free. And the rock has added height to the mountain.”
“Liberation My mind is clouded, I cannot hunt anymore. I lay my gun over the tracks of the rabbit. It was as though I became that creature who could not decide whether to flee or be still and so was trapped in the pursuer's eyes- And for the first time I knew those eyes have to be blank because it is impossible to kill and question at the same time. Then the shutter snapped, the rabbit went free. He flew through the empty forest that part of me that was the victim. Only victims have a destiny. And the hunter, who believed whatever struggles begs to be torn apart: that part is paralyzed.”
“Horse What does the horse give you That I cannot give you? I watch you when you are alone, When you ride into the field behind the dairy, Your hands buried in the mare's Dark mane. Then I know what lies behind your silence: Scorn, hatred of me, of marriage. Still, You want me to touch you; you cry out As brides cry, but when I look at you I see There are no children in your body. Then what is there? Nothing, I think. Only haste To die before I die. In a dream, I watched you ride the horse Over the dry fields and then Dismount: you two walked together; In the dark, you had no shadows. But I felt them coming toward me Since at night they go anywhere, They are their own masters. Look at me. You think I don't understand? What is the animal If not passage out of this life?”
“But nakedness in women is always a pose. I was not transfigured. I would never be free.”
“You have betrayed me, Eros. You have sent me my true love.”
“I know now what happens to the dreamers. They don't feel it when they change.”
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Book Keywords:
loss, achilles, horses, women, poetry
