Memories: Bullish By Night

Old sculpture:
30-40 minute exercise with model?
Years ago, so I am not sure.
Sculpture mix--and overglazed, but I like how that came out.

My stubborn side, you know?

Dreams and Shadows -- Robert Graves' "Theseus and Ariadne"

Amazon: sculpture mix; cobalt carbonate oxide.

THESEUS AND ARIADNE

High on his figured couch beyond the waves

He dreams, in dream recalling her set walk

Down paths of oyster-shell bordered with flowers,

Across the shadowy turf below the vines.

He sighs: "Deep sunk in my erroneous past

She haunts the ruins and the ravaged lawns."

Yet still unharmed it stands, the regal house

Crooked with age and overtopped by pines

Where first he wearied of her constancy.

And with a surer foot she goes than when

Dread of his hate was thunder in the air,

When the pines agonised with flaws of wind

And flowers glared up at her with frantic eyes.

Of him, now all is done, she never dreams

But calls a living blessing down upon

What he supposes rubble and rank grass;

Playing queen to nobler company.

--ROBERT GRAVES

Fragments From Bacchylides

Though Honor shifts to any shape,
And man's skills cannot be told,
One outranks them all: the mind
Discretion moves to what's at hand.

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Yet resilient Theseus
Did not flinch:
Poising tall
On the planked deck,
He dived an arc
To his welcome warm
In the sea's glades.
Minos, bit to the quick . . . .

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Works of the gods are wonders
Seaworthy men confirm.

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This for the last time:
Profit can crush
Profoundest minds.

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One writer picks another's brains--
Call it tradition:
Taking the gates of a new song
Is no small job.

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One criterion, one approach
Leads on to man's success:
The soul that sees out
Life in self-delight.
Who hounds his wits
At the heels of crowding cares
And pummels his mind with what's to come,
Drives dead work through the days and nights . . . .
Throttle your heart with sorrow,
All the gladness dies.

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. . . when she curves that smooth arm,
And flicks some wine at the saucers--
Just with a neat turn of her wrist--
Our flute-girl serves her bachelors.

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Never underhand,
The words that Wisdom
Resonates in man.

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The gifts of the Muses,
Goals of a hard campaign,
Do not surrender
To all who handle arms.

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*Bacchylides was a Greek poet of the fifth century B.C.  You can find these fragments and more with an appropriate scholarly treatment in . . .

Bacchylides, Complete Poems, 
Translated, with a Note to the New Edition, by Robert Fagles,
With a Foreward by Sir Maurice Bowra,
Introduction and Notes by Adam M. Parry,
Yale University Press: New Haven & London,
1998.

Hektor: sculpture mix, pit-fired.
(The red is from kelp-wrappings before I put the piece into the pit, I'm fairly sure.)