I wish there were more than 24 hours in a day. And so I would have time for all I wanna do, and write. I am writing as a hobby at the moment, and after a conversation I had recently with a retired librarian, a lady, I m still thinking how "small" I am. From a lot of angles. I may be one of those people , some day “well-educated” (not today!) who sat through lessons that barely registered, or at least are hazy to the point of irrelevance a few years later....so this woman helped me quick remember Oscar Wilde saying:
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well
to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
You either have it in you or you don't. You cannot teach another person the sensibility and passion for something. It takes that very person to discover them within own self and cultivate them.
She talked to me about Eminescu, who is one of the greatest writter Romania ever had. And I could have listened for hours. This lady never studied at any university, but her love for books says it all now. All my respects for how much she knows about our writers. I m a big ignorant who thinks at times to be so smart....because education may have to do with knowledge, but for sure is not all about the number of certificates and diplomas you get.
...dreamer who was far away from reality,
who did not suffer because of the material conditions that he lived in..
There won't be another Eminescu. His verses and his prose have a meaning hard to reach by the average person. Including myself. Whatever I learned in school, this lady told me so much more, things that I never thought about, I never saw.
I can only hope to make you curious about this genius, who was Eminescu. Here s a fragment from one of his renowned letters/ or satires, Satire III, that evokes the meeting between Mircea,the Prince/Voievode of Wallachia, and the great Sultan, of the Ottoman Empire.
..........
Now came a company of men, in front a white flag borne,
And Bayazid regarding them enquired with haughty scorn:
"What do you want?"
"We want but peace, and if it be allowed
Our Sire would like to speak awhile with you, great Sultan proud."
At a sigh the way was cleared, and came towards the tent
A man of calm and simple mien, and with the years bent.
"Is't Mircea ?"
"Yes your Highness !"
"Take heed, for caution warns,
Lest you your crown exchange against a wreath of thorns."
"That you have come, great emperor, no heed what be your aim,
While still at peace I hail you, our greetings that you came;
But, as to your good council, o may the Lord forgive,
If you do dream to win this land by force imperative;
Had you not better return home with calm and peaceful mind
And show in your imperial strength that you are just and kind...
Be the one or be the other, but little does it awe,
Gladly shall we take our fare, either peace or war."
"What, when nations open their gates before my trump
You think my hosts will stumble against a rotten stump ?
You do not guess, old dotard, the force my foes deployed
The West's most noble flower these soldiers have destroyed.
O'er all the cross does shelter, emperors and kings,
The crescent moon ascending its silver shadow flings.
Aye, clad in gleaming armour the cavaliers of Malta,
The Pope who wears three crowns and guards the Holy Altar
Lightning against lightning set and thunder against thunder,
A storm that fraught the sea with fear and filled the earth with wonder.
I needed but to make a sign, a movement of my head
And all the nations in my path in wild disorder fled;
For strong to overthrow the cross did march a mighty host
O'er sea its rule from land to land, on land from coast to coast;
Shattering the peace of earth as it did march along,
Darkening the countryside in tens of thousand strong........
And Bayazid regarding them enquired with haughty scorn:
"What do you want?"
"We want but peace, and if it be allowed
Our Sire would like to speak awhile with you, great Sultan proud."
At a sigh the way was cleared, and came towards the tent
A man of calm and simple mien, and with the years bent.
"Is't Mircea ?"
"Yes your Highness !"
"Take heed, for caution warns,
Lest you your crown exchange against a wreath of thorns."
"That you have come, great emperor, no heed what be your aim,
While still at peace I hail you, our greetings that you came;
But, as to your good council, o may the Lord forgive,
If you do dream to win this land by force imperative;
Had you not better return home with calm and peaceful mind
And show in your imperial strength that you are just and kind...
Be the one or be the other, but little does it awe,
Gladly shall we take our fare, either peace or war."
"What, when nations open their gates before my trump
You think my hosts will stumble against a rotten stump ?
You do not guess, old dotard, the force my foes deployed
The West's most noble flower these soldiers have destroyed.
O'er all the cross does shelter, emperors and kings,
The crescent moon ascending its silver shadow flings.
Aye, clad in gleaming armour the cavaliers of Malta,
The Pope who wears three crowns and guards the Holy Altar
Lightning against lightning set and thunder against thunder,
A storm that fraught the sea with fear and filled the earth with wonder.
I needed but to make a sign, a movement of my head
And all the nations in my path in wild disorder fled;
For strong to overthrow the cross did march a mighty host
O'er sea its rule from land to land, on land from coast to coast;
Shattering the peace of earth as it did march along,
Darkening the countryside in tens of thousand strong........
Eminescu is omnipresent in present-day Romania. His statues are everywhere; his face was on the 1000-lei banknote issued in 1998 and is on the new 500-lei banknote issued in 2005 as the highest-denominated Romanian banknote (see Romanian leu); many schools and other institutions are named after him. The anniversaries of his birth and death are celebrated each year in many Romanian cities, and they became national celebrations in 1989 (the centennial of his death) and 2000 (150 years after his birth, proclaimed Eminescu's Year in Romania).
Several young Romanian writers provoked a huge scandal when they wrote about their demystified idea of Eminescu and went so far as to reject the "official" interpretation of his work.
Several young Romanian writers provoked a huge scandal when they wrote about their demystified idea of Eminescu and went so far as to reject the "official" interpretation of his work.
A monument jointly dedicated to Eminescu and Allama Iqbal was erected in Islamabad, Pakistan on 15 January 2004, commemorating strong Pakistani-Romanian ties, as well as the dialogue between civilizations which is possible through the cross-cultural appreciation of their poetic legacies. In 2004, the Mihai Eminescu Statue was erected in Montréal, Canada.
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