VOLUME A: THE ANCIENT WORLD.
CROSS-CURRENTS: CREATION MYTHS AND SOCIAL REALITIES.
The Babylonian Theogony.
A Memphite Theology, tr. Miriam Lichtheim.
The Pyramid Texts of Unas (Egypt, c. 2300 B.C.E.), tr. Miriam Lichtheim.
From Utterance 217: The King Joins the Sun-god.
Utterances 273-274: The King Feeds on the Gods.
Utterance 309: The King Serves the Sun-god.
The Rig Veda, tr. Le May.
Hymn of Creation.
Hymn of Man.
Hymn to the Dawn.
Resonance.
From Agganna Sutta (Buddhist counter-creation).
The Great Hymn to the Aten (Egypt, 14th century B.C.E.), tr. Miriam Lichtheim.
Enuma Elish, The Babylonian Creation Epic (c. 1200 B.C.E.), tr. Stephanie Dalley.
Enuma Elish.
Birth of the Gods. Conflict Begins.
Who will face Tiamat?
The Gods Commission Marduk.
Marduk and Tiamat at War.
Victory Celebration. Founding of Babylon.
Creation of Humanity.
Hesiod, from Theogony.
Genesis (Israel, c. 900 B.C.E.), tr. Robert Alter.
The Ancient Near East.
Poetry of Love and Devotion.
Last night, as I, the queen, was shining bright (Sumer, c. late 3rd millennium B.C.E.), tr. J.B. Pritchard.
Egyptian Love Songs (2nd millennium B.C.E.), tr. W. K. Simpson.
The Song of Songs, Jerusalem Bible tr.
The Epic of Gilgamesh, tr. Maureen Kovacs.
Perspectives: Death and Immortality.
The Descent of Ishtar to the Underworld (Babylon, 2nd millennium), tr. Stephanie Dalley.
From The Book of the Dead (Egypt, 2nd millennium) tr. Miriam Lichtheim.
Letters to the Dead, tr. Gardiner and Sethe.
Kabti-Ilani-Marduk, from The Erra Epic (Babylon, c. 8th century B.C.E.), tr. David Damrosch.
The Book of Job (Israel, c. 900 B.C.E.), Revised Standard Version.
Resonances.
From The Babylonian Theodicy.
Psalm 22 (“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”)
Psalm 102 (“Hear my prayer, O Lord; let my cry come unto thee!”)
Perspectives: Strangers in a Strange Land.
The Story of Sinuhe (Egypt, c. 1925 B.C.E.), tr. Miriam Lichtheim.
The Two Brothers (Egypt, c. 1200 B.C.E.), tr. Miriam Lichtheim.
The Joseph Story (Israel, 1st millennium B.C.E.), New International Version.
Genesis 35-50: The Joseph Story.
The Book of Ruth (Israel, c. 6th century B.C.E.), New International Version.
Classical Greece.
Homer.
From The Iliad, tr. Robert Fagles.
Resonances: Oral Composition.
Filip Visnjic: The Death of Kraljevic Marko.
From Sirat Bani Hilal.
Homer.
The Odyssey, tr. Robert Fagles.
Resonances.
Franz Kafka: The Silence of the Sirens.
George Seferis: Upon a Foreign Verse.
Derek Walcott: From Omeros.
Archaic Lyric Poetry.
Arkhilokhos, tr. M. L. West.
Encounter in a Meadow.
The Fox and the Hedgehog.
Elegies.
Sappho, tr. M. L. West.
Rich-throned immortal Aphrodite.
Come, goddess.
Some think a fleet.
He looks to me to be in heaven.
Love shakes my heart.
Honestly, I wish I were dead.
she worshipped you.
Like a sweet-apple.
The doorman's feet.
Resonances.
H.D.: from The Wise Sappho.
Alejandra Pizarnik: Poem, Lovers, Recognition, Meaning of His Absence, Dawn, Falling.
Alkaios, tr. M. L. West.
And fluttered Argive Helen's heart.
They tell us that Priam and his sons.
The high hall.
I can't make out the lie of the winds.
Alkman, tr. M. L. West.
Hagesichora Ode.
Pindar, tr. Frank J. Nisetich.
First Olympian Ode.
Resonances.
John Keats: Ode on a Grecian Urn.
Rainer Maria Rilke: Archaic Torso of Apollo.
Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.E.).
Agamemnon, tr. Richmond Lattimore.
Resonances.
W. B. Yeats: Leda and the Swan.
Sophocles (496-406 B.C.E.).
Oedipus the King, tr. David Grene.
Resonance.
Aristotle: from Poetics.
Perspectives: Tyranny and Democracy.
Solon (c. 640-558 B.C.E.) tr. M. L. West.
Our state will never fail.
The commons I have granted.
Those aims for which I called the public meeting.
Herodotus (484-425 B.C.E.), tr. Aubrey de Sélincourt.
From The History.
Thucydides.
From The Peloponnesian War (c. 410 B.C.E.), tr. Steven Lattimore.
Plato.
From The Republic, tr. Desmond Lee.
The Apology, tr. Hugh Tredennick or Jowett.
Euripides (c. 480-405 B.C.E.).
The Medea tr. Rex Warner.
Resonances.
Herodotus: from The History.
Friedrich Nietzsche: from The Birth of Tragedy.
Aristophanes (445-c.380 B.C.E.).
Lysistrata, tr. J. Henderson.
Resonance.
Plato: from The Symposium.
Early South Asia.
The Mahabharata of Vyasa (Sanskrit, last centuries B.C.E.-early centuries B.C.E).
Book 2: The Friendly Dice Game, tr. Daniel H. H. Ingalls.
Book 5: The Temptation of Karna, tr. J.A.B. van Buitenen.
Book 6: from The Bhagavad Gita, tr. Barbara Stoler Miller.
Resonances.
Kautilya: from The Treatise on Power.
Asoka: from Inscriptions.
The Ramayana of Valmiki (Sanskrit, last centuries B.C.E.).
Book 2: The exile of Rama, tr. Sheldon Pollock.
Book 3: The abduction of Sita, tr. Sheldon Pollock.
Book 6: The Death of Ravana and The Fire Ordeal of Sita, tr. Barend A. van Nooten, Robert Goldman, & Sally Sutherland Goldman.
Resonances.
From The Bhilonu Bharat of the Dungari Bhil people.
From A Comic Book Ramayana.
From A Public Address, Varanasi.
Daya Pawar, et al.: We Are Not Your Monkeys.
Perspectives: What is “Literature”?
The Ramayana of Valmiki.
The Invention of Poetry, tr. Robert P. Goldman.
RajasHekhara.
From Inquiry into Literature (Sanskrit, 10th century), tr. Sheldon Pollock.
Anandavardhana.
From Light on Suggestion (Sanskrit, 9th century), tr. Daniel H. H. Ingalls et al.
Abhinavagupta.
From The Eye for the “Light on Suggestion” (Sanskrit, 10th century), tr. Daniel H. H. Ingalls et al.
Love in a Courtly Language.
The Tamil Anthologies, (Tamil, 2nd-3rd century), tr. A. K. Ramanujan.
The Seven Hundred Songs of Hala (Prakrit, 2nd-3rd century), tr. Arvind Krishna Mehrotra.
The Hundred Poems of Amaru (Sanskrit, 7th century), tr. Daniel H. H. Ingalls.
Vatsyayana (Sanskrit, 3rd century), tr. Sir Richard Burton (revised).
Kamasutra: Kinds of Union According to Dimensions, Force of Desire, and Time.On the Different Kinds of Passion .
Kalidasa: Shakuntala and the Ring of Recollection (Sanskrit, 4th-5th century), tr. Barbara Stoler Miller.
Resonances.
From The Mahabarata: The Story of Shakuntala.
Kuntaka: from The Life-force of Literary Beauty.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: On Shakuntala.
Rabindranath Tagore: from Shakuntala: Its Inner Meaning.
Perspectives: Asceticism, Wisdom, and the Middle Way.
The Lore of the Dwarf Incarnation (Sanskrit, early centuries B.C.E.), tr. Wendy O'Flaherty.
The Ascetic Who Turned His Blood into Vegetable Sap.
The Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad (Sanskrit, 7th-6th century B.C.E.), tr. Patrick Olivelle.
The Nature of Self.
The Chandogya Upanishad (Sanskrit, 6th-5th century B.C.E.), tr. Patrick Olivelle.
The Essence of Reality.
Ashvaghosha (Sanskrit, 100 B.C.E.), tr. E.H. Johnston, revised.
From The Life of the Buddha.
Discourses of the Buddha (Pali, 5th century B.C.E.).
The Fire Sermon, tr. Henry Clarke Warren.
Dhaniya the Herdsman, tr. H. Saddhatissa.
The Unicorn's Horn, tr. H. Saddhatissa.
China: The Classical Tradition.
The Book of Songs (compiled by 6th c. B.C.E.), tr. Arthur Waley.
The Ospreys Cry.
Locusts.
Plop Fall the Plums.
In the Wilds is a Dead Doe.
Resonances.
In the wilds there is a dead deer, tr. Bernard Karlgren.
Lies a dead deer on younder plain, tr. Ezra Pound.
Resonances.
In the open grounds there is the creeping grass, tr. Bernhard Karlgren.
Mid the bind-grass on the plain, tr. Ezra Pound.
Resonances.
Heaven protects and secures you, tr. Bernhard Karlgren.
Heaven conserve thy course in quietness, tr. Ezra Pound.
Resonances.
Confucius: from The Analects.
Wei Hong: from Preface to The Book of Songs.
Tang Xianzu: from The Peony Pavilion.
Confucius (551-479 B.C.E.).
The Analects (6th c. B.C.E.), tr. S. Leys.
Perspectives: Daoism.
FromDao De Jing, tr. D. C. Lau.
FromZhuangzi, tr. Burton Watson.
From The Book of Liezi.
Xi Kang, from Letter to Shan Tao, tr. J. Hightower.
Liu Yiqing, from A New Account of the Tales of the World, tr. B. Mather.
Sima Qian, from The Grand Historian's Records.
Rome and the Roman Empire.
Virgil (70-19 B.C.E.), Aeneid, tr. Robert Fitzgerald.
From Book 1: A fateful haven.
From Book 2: How they took the city.
Book 4: The passion of the queen.
From Book 6: The world below.
From Book 8: Evander.
From Book 12: The Death of Turnus.
Resonances.
Horace: from Odes: 1.24, Why should our grief for a man so loved.
Macrobius: from Saturnalia.
Ovid (43 B.C.E.-18 B.C.E.).
Metamorphoses, tr. A. D. Melville.
The Creation, The Ages of Mankind, The Flood.
Phaethon.
Tiresias.
Narcissus and Echo.
Arachne.
Orpheus and Eurydice.
Orpheus' Song: Ganymede, Hyacinth, Pygmalion.
The Death of Orpheus.
The Minotaur.
Daedalus and Icarus.
Pythagoras.
Perspectives: Roman Culture and the Beginnings of Christianity.
Catullus, tr. Charles Martin (84-54 B.C.E.).
3 (“Cry out lamenting, Venuses and Cupids”).
5 (“Lesbia, let us live only for loving”).
16 (“Pedicabo et irrumabo”).
13 (“You will dine well with me, my dear Fabullus”).
51 (“To me that man seems like a god in heaven”).
76 (“If any pleasure can come to a man through recalling”).
85 (“I hate and love”).
107 (“If ever something which someone with no expectation”).
Resonances.
The Priapea.
Horace (65-8 B.C.E.).
Satire 1.8 (“Once I was wood from a worthless old fig tree”), tr. Richard W. Hopper.
Satire 1.5 (“Leaving the big city behind I found lodgings at Aricia”), tr. Niall Rudd.
Ode 1.25 (“The young bloods are not so eager now”), tr. David West.
Ode 1.9 (“Soracte standing white and deep”), tr. David West.
Ode 2.13 (“Not only did he plant you on an unholy day”), tr. David West.
Ode 2.14 (“Ah how quickly, Postumus, Postumus”), tr. David West.
Petronius (d. 65 CE).
From Satyricon, tr. J.P. Sullivan.
Paul (c. 10-67 or 68 CE).
From Epistle to the Romans (56 CE).
Luke (fl. 80-110 CE).
From The Gospel According to Luke.
From The Acts of the Apostles.
Roman Responses to Christianity.
Suetonius (c. 70 - after 122 CE): from The Twelve Caesars.
Tacitus (c. 56 - after 118 CE): from The Annals of Imperial Rome.
Pliny the Younger (c. 60 - c. 112 CE): Letter to Emperor Trajan.
Trajan (Emperor of Rome, 98-117 CE): Response to Pliny.
Juvenal (fl. 98-128 ce).
From The Third Satire, tr. Peter Green.
Apuleius (fl. c. 155 CE).
From The Golden Ass, tr. Arthur Hanson.
Augustine (354-430 ce), Confessions, tr. Henry Chadwick.
Invocation and infancy.
Grammar school.
The Pear-tree.
Student at Carthage.
Arrival in Rome.
Ponticianus.
Take it and read.
Monica's death.
Time, eternity, and memory.
Resonances.
Michel de Montaigne: from Essays.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau: from Confessions.
The City of God, tr. Henry Bettenson.
Resonance.
Boethius: from Consolation of Philosophy
VOLUME B: THE MEDIEVAL ERA.
Cross-Currents: Contact, Conflict, and Conversion.
I-Ching (635-713).
From Chinese Monks in India, tr. Latika Lahiri.
Heavenly Tales (Sanskrit, early centuries ce), tr. Andrew Rotman.
The Story of One who Relishes the Dharma.
Tibetan Death Rituals and Dream Visions, tr. Matthew Kapstein.
The Way of the Dead (9th century).
The Dream Vision of Mar-pa (1012-1097).
From The Platform of Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch (China, 780), tr. Philip Yampolsky.
The Dharma in Korea..
Master Wolmyong: Requiem.
Priest Yongjae: Meeting with Bandits.
Great Master Kyunyo: from Eleven Devotional Poems.
From The Voyage of St. Brendan, tr. J.F. Webb.
Snorri Sturluson (d. 1241).
From The Prose Edda.
From Njal's Saga (c. 1250).
Marco Polo (d. 1324).
From The Book of Wonders (Italian, end of 13th c.).
Resonances.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Kubla Khan.
Italo Calvino: from Invisible Cities.
Ibn BatTuta (d. 1378).
From The Travels of Ibn Battuta.
Medieval China.
Women in Early China.
Liu Xiang (78-8 B.C.E.), Biographies of Admirable Women, tr. Nancy Gibbs.
Liu Xiang (78-8 B.C.E.), The Mother of Mencius.
Ban Zhao (45-120), Lessons for Women, tr. Nancy Lee Swann.
Yuan Cai (12th century), Precepts for Social Life, tr. Patricia Ebrey.
Voices of Women.
Here's a Willow Bough: Songs of the Thirteen Months (3rd-4th century), tr. Joseph R. Allen.
Midnight Songs (late 4th century), tr. Jeanne Larsen.
A Peacock Southeast Flew (5th century), tr. Anne Birrell.
Ballad of Mulan (5th-6th century), tr. Arhur Waley or Stephen Owen.
Yuan Zhen (779-831).
The Story of Yingying , tr. Arthur Waley.
Resonance.
Wang Shifu: from The Story of the Western Wing.
Tao Qian (365-427), tr. James R. Hightower.
Biography of the Gentleman of the Five Willows, tr. A.R. Davis.
Peach Blossom Spring.
Resonances.
Wang Wei (701-761): Song of Peach Blossom Spring.
Han Shan (Cold Mountain) (7th century).
Men ask the way to Cold Mountain, tr. Gary Snyder.
Spring water in the green creek is clear, tr. Gary Snyder.
When men see Han-shan, tr. Gary Snyder.
I climb the road to Cold Mountain, tr. Burton Watson.
Wonderful, this road to Cold Mountain, tr. Burton Watson.
Cold cliffs, more beautiful the deeper you enter, tr. Burton Watson.
Men these days search for a way through the clouds, tr. Burton Watson.
Today I sat before the cliff, tr. Burton Watson.
Have I a body or have I none, tr. Burton Watson.
My mind is like the autumn moon, tr. Burton Watson.
Do you have the poems of Han-shan in your house?, tr. Burton Watson.
Resonance.
Lu-qui Yin: from Preface to the poems of Han-shan.
Poetry of the Tang Dynasty.
Wang Wei (701-761), tr. Pauline Yu.
The Wang River Collection.
Bird Call Valley.
Farewell.
Farewell to Yuan the Second on His Mission to Anxi.
Visiting the Temple of Gathered Fragrance.
Zhongnan Retreat.
In Response to Vice-Magistrate Zhang.
Li Bo (701-62).
Drinking Alone by Moonlight, 1-3, tr. Arthur Waley or Vikram Seth.
Fighting South of the Ramparts, tr. Arthur Waley.
The Road to Shu is Hard, tr. Vikram Seth.
Bring in the Wine, tr. Vikram Seth.
The Jewel Stairs' Grievance, tr. Ezra Pound.
The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter, tr. Ezra Pound.
Listening to a Monk from Shu Playing the Lute, tr. Vikram Seth.
Farewell to a Friend, tr. Pauline Yu.
In the Quiet Night, tr. Vikram Seth.
Sitting Alone by Jingting Mountain, tr. Stephen Owen.
Question and Answer in the Mountains, tr. Vikram Seth.
Du Fu (712-770).
The Army Wagons: A Ballad, tr. Stephen Owen.
Moonlit Night, tr. Vikram Seth.
Spring Prospect, tr. Pauline Yu.
Traveling at Night, tr. Pauline Yu.
Autumn Meditations, 8 Poems, tr. A.C. Graham.
Between Yangzi and Han, tr. A.C. Graham.
Bo Juyi (772-846).
Song of Lasting Pain, tr. Stephen Owen.
Perspectives: What is “Literature”?
Cao Pi (182-226), from A Discourse on Literature, tr. Stephen Owen.
Lu Ji (261-302), from Rhymeprose on Literature, tr. Achilles Fang.
Liu Xie, from The Literary Mind.
Wang Changling (698-757), from A Discussion of Literature and Meaning, tr. Richard Bodman.
Sikong Tu (837-908), from The Twenty-four Classes of Poetry.
Song Lyrics.
Li Yu (937-978), To the tune Die lian hua (“A leisurely evening in garden and meadow”), tr. Daniel Bryant.
Li Yu, To the tune Qingping yue (“Since our parting spring is half-gone”), tr. Daniel Bryant.
Li Yu, To the tune Wang Jiangnan (“So much heart-ache”), tr. Daniel Bryant.
Li Yu, To the tune Yu Meiren (“Spring flowers, the moon in autumn, when will these cease to be?”) tr. Daniel Bryant..
Li Qingzhao (1081-1149), To the tune Yi jian mei (“The scent of red lotus fades”), tr. Eugene Eoyang.
Li Qingzhao, To the tune Ru meng ling (“I'll always remember that day at dusk”), tr. Eugene Eoyang.
Li Qingzhao, To the tune Wuling chun (“The wind has ceased”), tr. Pauline Yu.
Li Qingzhao, To the tune Sheng sheng man (“Seeking, seeking, searching, searching”), tr. Pauline Yu.
Japan.
Kojiki, Record of Ancient Matters (712), adapted from tr. Donald Philippi.
At the Beginning.
Solidifying the Land.
Visit to Land of Yomi.
Susanoo and Amaterasu.
Susanoo Slays the Serpent.
Luck of the Sea and Luck of the Mountain.
The Manôshû, Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves (759).
Emperor Yûryaku (reigned 456-479), Your basket, with your pretty basket, tr. Nippon Gakujutsu Shinkôkai.
Emperor Jômei (593-641), Climbing Kagu Mountain and looking upon the land, tr. Nippon Gakujutsu Shinkôkai.
Princess Nukata (b.ca. 638-active until 690's), On spring and autumn, tr.Nippon Gakujutsu Shinkôkai.
Kakinomoro No Hitomaro (active 689-700), tr. Edwin Cranston.
Kakinomoro No Hitomaro, On passing the ruined capital of ômi, tr. Edwin Cranston.
Kakinomoro No Hitomaro, On leaving his wife as he set out from Iwami, tr. Edwin Cranston.
Kakinomoro No Hitomaro, After the death of his wife, tr. Edwin Cranston.
Yamabe No Akahito (active 724-736), On Mount Fuji, tr. Edwin Cranston.
Yamanoue No Okura (660-ca.733), A dialogue on poverty, tr. Ian Levy.
Murasaki Shikibu (d.1019).
From The Tale of Genji (1008), tr. Edward Seidensticker.
Resonances.
Murasaki Shikibu: from Diary.
Daughter of Sugawara No Takasue: from Sarashina Diary.
Riverside Counselor's Stories: The Woman Who Preferred Insects.
Perspectives: Courtly Women.
Ono No Komachi (fl. c. 850), tr. Jane Hirschfield.
Did he appear.
When my desire.
No way to see him.
The autumn night.
My longing for you—.
After a lover visited in secrecy.
The seaweed gatherer's weary feet.
I thought to pick.
Though I go to him constantly.
While watching.
Reply to Funga no Yasuhide.
How invisibly.
Resonance.
From Kokinshu: Kana Preface.
Mother of Mitchitsuna, from The Kagero Diary (974).
Sei Sh ônagon (1018, 1027), from The Pillowbook (996, 1001), tr. Ivan Morris.
Kamo No Chomei (1155-1216), An Account of My Ten-Foot-Square Hut (1212), tr. Anthony Chambers.
Tales of Heike (1218, 1309, 1371), tr. Helen McCullough.
Bells of Gion.
Gio.
The Death of Kiyomori.
The Death of Kiso.
The Death of Atsumori.
Death of Noritsune.
The Drowning of the Former Emperor.
The Matter of the Six Paths.
The Death of the Imperial Lady.
Noh: Drama of Ghosts, Memories, and Salvation.
Kan'ami (1333-1384) and Zeami (1363-1443).
Atsumori, a Tale of Heike Play, tr. Royall Tyler.
Matsukaze, a Woman Play, tr. Royall Tyler.
Sumidagawa, a Tale of Ise Play, tr. Royall Tyler.
Resonance.
Kyôgen, Comic Interludes: Delicious Poison.
Classical Islam.
Pre-Islamic Poetry.
Imru' al-Qays (d. 550).
Muallaqah (“Stop, let us weep at the memory of a loved one”).
Al-Khansa' (d. 646).
A mote in your eye, dust blown on the wind?, tr. Charles Greville Tuetey.
Elegy for Sakhr (“In the evening remembrance keeps me awake”), tr. Alan Jones.
Al- Saalik, The Brigand Poets.
Urwah, Do not be so free with your blame of me, O daughter of Mundhir.
Ta'abbata Sharra, A piece of news has come to us, terrible news.
Ta'abbata Sharra, Come, who will convey to the young men of Fahm the news.
The Qur'an, tr. Abdullah Yusuf Ali.
From Sura 41. Expounded.
From Sura 79. Those Who Tear Out.
From Sura 15. The Rocky Tract.
From Sura 2. The Heifer.
From Sura 7. The Heights.
Sura 1. The Opening.
From Sura 4. The Women.
From Sura 5. The Table Spread.
From Sura 8. Spoils of War.
From Sura 12. Joseph.
From Sura 16. The Bee.
From Sura 18. The Cave.
From Sura 19. Mary.
From Sura 21. The Prophet.
From Sura 24. The Light.
From Sura 28. The Story.
From Sura 36. Ya Sin.
From Sura 48. Victory.
Sura 71. Noah.
Sura 87. The Most High.
Sura 93. The Morning Light.
Sura 96. Read!
Sura 110. The Help.
Resonances.
Ibn Ishaq: from The Biography of the Prophet.
Ibn Sad: from The Prophet and his Disciples.
Hafiz.
The House of Hope, tr. A. J. Arberry.
Zephyr, tr. J. H. Hindley.
A Mad Heart, tr. A. J. Arberry.
Cup in Hand, tr J. Payne.
Last Night I Dreamed, tr. Gertrude Bell.
Harvest, tr. Richard le Gallienne.
All My Pleasure, tr. A. J. Arberry.
Wild Deer, tr. A. J. Arberry.
Resonance.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Blissful Yearning.
Perspectives: Poetry, Wine and Love.
Abu Nuwas.
Splendid young blades, like lamps in the darkness.
My body is racked with sickness, worn out by exhaustion.
Praise wine in its sweetness, tr. Arthur Wormhoudt.
O censor, I satisfied the Imam, he was content.
Bringing the cup of oblivion for sadness.
What's between me and the censurers.
His friend called him Sammaja for his beauty.
One possessed with a rosy cheek.
Resonance.
Hasab al-Shaik Ja'far: from Descent of Abu Nuwas.
Abu Tammam.
Genial now, the season's trim's a quiver, tr. Julia Ashtiany.
Where rock and sand dune meet, tr. Felix Klein-Franke.
Al-Buhturi.
I have preserved my soul from what pollutes my soul, tr. Richard Serrano after A. J. Arberry.
Ibn al-Rumi.
Say to whomever finds fault with the poem of his panegyrist, tr. Peter Blum, after Gregor Schoeler.
I have been deprived of all the comforts of life, tr. Peter Blum, after Gregor Schoeler.
I thought of you the day my journeys, tr. Robert Mckinney.
Sweet sleep has been barred from my eyes.
Al-Mutanabbi.
On Hearing in Egypt that his Death had been Reported.
Satire on Kafur Composed. before the Poet's Departure from Egypt.
Panegyric to Abdud al-Daula and his sons.
Ibn Zaydun, tr. A. R. Nykl.
May God pour rain over the dwellings of the beloved.
Our separation replaced our being near each other.
I remembered you in Az-Zahra, while longing for you.
Abu 'Uthman Ibn Bahr Al-Jahiz.
The Book of Misers tr. R. B. Serjeant.
From The Book of Singing Girls, tr. A. F. L. Beeston.
The Life and Works of Jahiz, tr. D. M. Hawke.
The Thousand and One Nights, tr. Husain Haddawy and Powys Mathers.
Prologue: The Story of King Shahrayar and Shahrazad, His Vizier's Daughter, tr. Husain Haddawy.
The Tale of the Ox and the Donkey.
The Tale of the Merchant and His Wife.
The Tale of the Porter and the Young Girls.
Tale of the Second Kalander.
The Tale of Zubaidah, the First of the Girls.
From The Tale of Sympathy the Learned.
From An Adventure of the Poet Abu Nuwas.
The Extraordinary Tale of the City of Brass.
The Flowering Terrace of Wit and the Garden of Gallantry.
The Youth and His Master.
The Wonderful Bag.
Al-Rashid Judges of Love.
From The End of Ja'far and the Barmakids.
From Conclusion.
Resonance.
from The History of al-Tabari.
Jalaloddin Rumi (1207-1283).
What excuses have you to offer, my heart, for so many shortcomings?, tr. A.J. Arberry.
The king has come, the king has come, adorn your palace-hall, tr. A.J. Arberry.
Have you ever seen any lover who was satiated with this passion?, tr. A.J. Arberry.
Three days it is now since my fair one has become changed, tr. A.J. Arberry.
The month of December has departed, and January too, tr. A.J. Arberry.
We have become drunk, and our heart has departed, it has fled from us, tr. A.J. Arberry.
We are foes to ourselves, and friends to him who slays us, tr. A.J. Arberry.
Not for a single moment do I let hold of you, tr. A.J. Arberry.
Who'll take us home, now we've drunk ourselves blind? , tr. Amin Banani.
Perspectives: Asceticism, Sufism, and Wisdom.
Al-Hallaj.
I have a dear friend whom I visit in solitary places, tr.D. P. Brewster.
I continued to float on the sea of love, tr. M. M. Badawi.
Painful enough it is that I am ever calling out to You, tr. M. M. Badawi.
Your place in my heart is the whole of my heart, tr. M. M. Badawi.
You who blame me for my love of Him, tr. M. M. Badawi.
I swear to God, the sun has never risen or set, tr. M. M. Badawi.
Ah! I or You? These are two Gods, tr. Samah Salim.
Here am I, here am I, O my secret, O my trust! , tr. Samah Salim.
I am not I and I am not He; then who am I and who is He? , tr. Samah Salim.
Al-Niffari.
From The Book of Spiritual Stayings, tr. Arthur John Arberry.
Ibn al-cArabi, tr. Gerald Elmore.
O domicile without rival, neither abandoned.
I am “The Reviver”-I speak not allusively.
Of knowers, am I not most avaricious.
Truly, my two Friends, I am a keeper of the Holy Law.
Time is passing by the days of my youth and vigor.
Bouts of dryness came upon me constantly from every side.
Law and Soundness make of him a heretic.
The time of my release, which I had always calculated.
To that which they don't understand all people do oppose.
The abode from which thou art absent is sad.
Farid UD-Din al'Attar.
From The Conference of the Birds, tr. Afkhan Darbandi and Dick Davis.
Firdawsi.
al-Shah-nameh: The Book of Kings.
From The Tragedy of Sohrab and Rostam.
From The Epic of Son-Jara.
Medieval Europe.
Beowulf (Old English, c. 8th-10th century), tr. A. Sullivan and T. Murphy.
Resonances.
From The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki.
Jorge Luis Borges: Poem Written in the Copy of Beowulf.
The Poem of the Cid (Castilian, late 12th-early 13th century), tr. W.S. Merwin.
Perspectives: Iberia, the Meeting of Three Worlds.
Castilian Ballads and Traditional Songs (c. 11th-14th century).
Ballad of Juliana, tr. Edwin Honig.
Abenámar, tr. William M. Davis.
These mountains, mother, tr. James Duffy.
I will not pick verbena, tr. James Duffy.
Three moorish girls, tr. Angela Buxton.
Mozarabic Kharjas (c. 10th-early 11th century), tr. Dronke.
As if you were a stranger.
Ah tell me, little sisters.
My lord Ibrahim.
I'll give you such love.
Take me out of this plight.
Mother, I shall not sleep, tr. William M. Davis.
Ibn Hazm (Hispano-Arabic, 994-1064), tr. James Monroe.
From The Dove's Neckring.
Averroë (Hispano-Arabic, 1126-1198).
From The Decisive Treatise Determining the Nature of the Connection.
Between Religion and Philosophy, tr. G.F. Hourani.
Ibn al-cArabi (Hispano-Arabic, 1165-1240).
Gentle now, doves, tr. Michael Sells or James Monroe.
Solomon Ibn Gabirol.
She looked at me and her eyelids burned, tr. William M. Davis.
Behold the sun at evening, tr Scheindlin.
The mind is flawed, tr. Scheindlin.
Winter wrote with the ink of its rain and showers.
Yehuda Ha-Levi (before 1075-1141).
Cups without wine are lowly, tr. William M. Davis.
Ofra does her laundry with my tears, tr. Raymond Scheindlin.
Once when I fondled him upon my thighs, tr. Scheindlin.
From time's beginning, You were love's abode, tr. Scheindlin.
Your breeze, Western shore, is perfumed, tr. Goldstein.
My heart is in the east, r. Goldstein.
From The Book of the Khazars.
Ramón Lull (Catalan, 1233-1315).
From Blanquerna: The Book of the Lover and the Beloved (Catalan), tr. E. Allison Peers.
Dom Dinis, King of Portugal (Galician-Portuguese, 1261-1325).
Provençals right well may versify, tr. William M. Davis.
Of what are you dying, daughter?, tr.Fowler.
O blossoms of the verdant pine, tr. Fowler.
The lovely girl arose at earliest dawn, tr. Fowler.
Martin Codax (Galician-Portuguese, fl. mid-13th century).
Ah God, if only my love could know, tr. Dronke.
My beautiful sister, come hurry with me, tr. Fowler.
Oh waves that I've come to see, tr. Fowler.
Troubadours and Trobairitz (Occitan) tr. David L. Pike.
Guillem de Peiteus (1071-1127).
Bernart de Ventadorn (fl. 1150-1180).
Béatrice, La Comtessa de Dia (fl. c. 1160).
Bertran de Born (b. c. 1140).
Walther Von Der Vogelweide (Middle High German, c. 1170-c. 1230), tr. David Damrosch.
Will anyone tell me what Minne is?
Under the lime tree.
I sat down on a rock.
Alas, all my years, where have they disappeared!
Palestine Song (“Now my life has gained some meaning”), tr. Barbara Garvey Seagrave & Wesley Thomas.
Resonance.
From Carmina Burana: Epicurus loudly cries.
Marie de France (Anglo-Norman, mid-12th - early 13th century).
Lais, tr. Joan Ferrante and Robert Hanning.
Prologue.
Bisclavret.
Chevrefoil
Lanval.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Middle English, late 14th century), tr. J.R.R. Tolkien.
Perspectives: The Art of Love.
Ovid (43 B.C.E.-18 ce), from The Art of Love (Latin, c. 1 B.C.E.), tr. Peter Green.
Andreas Capellanus, from The Art of Courtly Love (Latin, late 11th c), tr. John Jay Parry.
Gottfried von Strassburg, from Tristan (Middle High German, c. 1210), tr. A. T. Hatto.
Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, from The Romance of the Rose (Old French, ca. 1220-1230), tr. Harry W. Robbins.
Christine de Pizan (1363-1429?) from The Letter of the God of Love (Old French), tr. Thelma Fenster.
Juan Ruiz, Archpriest of Hita, from The Book of Good Love (Castilian, mid-14th century), tr. Rigo Mignani & Mario di Cesare.
Abelard and Heloise (Latin, early to mid-12th century) tr. Betty Radice.
Abelard: from Historia Calamitatum, tr. Henry Adams Bellows.
Abelard and Heloise: from Letters 1-5, tr. Betty Radice.
Abelard: Lament, tr. Helen Waddell.
Abelard: from Yes and No, tr. Brian Tierney.
Resonance.
Bernard of Clairvaux: Letters against Abelard.
The Play of Adam (Anglo-Norman, mid to late 12th century), tr. Richard Axton & John Stevens.
Scene 1, Adam and Eve.
Perspectives: Theology And Mysticism.
Anselm of Canterbury (Latin, 1033-1109), from Proslogion, tr. M. J. Charlesworth.
Thomas Aquinas (Latin, 1225-1274), from Summa Theologica, tr. Anton C. Pegis.
Bernard of Clairvaux (Latin, 1090-1153), from Sermons on the Song of Songs, tr. Kilian Walsh.
Hildegard von Bingen (Latin, 1078-1179), from Scivias, tr. Mother Columba Hart & Jane Bishop and Sequence: The Dove Peered In, tr. Dronke.
Mechthild von Magdeburg (Latin, 1207-1282), from The Flowing Light of the Godhead, tr.David Damrosch.
Dante Alighieri (Florentine Italian, 1265-1321).
La Vita Nuova, tr. Mark Musa.
The Divine Comedy.
Inferno, tr. Allen Mandelbaum.
Purgatorio(Certain sections selected), tr. Allen Mandelbaum .
Paradiso(Certain sections selected), tr. Allen Mandelbaum.
Resonances.
Chaucer: from The Monk's Tale.
Percy Bysshe Shelley: Ugolino.
Amiri Baraka: from The System of Dante's Hell.
Geoffrey Chaucer (Middle, English, 1340-1400).
Canterbury Tales(Certain sections selected), tr. J.U. Nicolson.
François Villon (French, 1431-after 1463).
From The Testament, tr. Galway Kinnell.
Ballad of the Hanged, tr. Kendall Lappin.
VOLUME C: THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD.
Cross-Currents: Vernacular Revolutions.
Vernacular Writing in South Asia.
Basavanna (Kannada, 1200), tr. A. K. Ramanujan.
Like a monkey on a tree.
You can make them talk.
The crookedness of the serpent.
I don't know anything like time-beats and meter.
The rich.
Resonance.
Palkuriki Somanatha: from The Lore of Basava.
Mahadeviyakka (Kannada, 1200), tr. A. K. Ramanujan.
Other men are thorn.
Who cares / who strips a tree of leaf.
Better than meeting.
Kabir (Hindi, 15th century), tr. Linda Hess and Shukdev Sinha.
Saints, I see the world is mad.
Brother, where did your two gods come from?
Pandit, look in your heart for knowledge.
When you die, what do you do with your body?
It's a heavy confusion.
The road the pandits took.@AHEADS = Tukaram (Marathi, 1608-1649), tr. Dilip Chitre.
I was only dreaming.
If only you would.
Have I utterly lost my hold on reality.
I scribble and cancel it again.
Where does one begin with you?
Some of you may say.
To arrange words.
When my father died.
Born a shudra, I have been a trader.
Kshetrayya, Temple Courtesan Songs (Telugu, 17th century), tr. A. K. Ramanujan et al.
A Woman to Her Love.
A Young Woman to a Friend.
A Courtesan to Her Love.
A Married Woman Speaks to Her Lover.
A Married Woman to Her Lover (1).
A Married Woman to Her Lover (2).
WuCh'Eng-En (China, 1506-1581).
From Journey to the West, tr. Anthony Yu.
Resonance.
From The Ramayana of Valmiki: Hanuman Searches for Sita.
The Rise of the Vernacular in Europe.
Biblical Translations.
Psalm 23.
The Gospel of Luke 1:26-39.
New World Psalms.
Attacking and Defending the Vernacular Bible.
Henry Knighton: from Chronicle (1382), tr. Anne Hudson.
Martin Luther: from On Translating: An Open Letter (1530), tr. Jacobs, rev. Bachman.
The King James Bible: from The Translators to the Reader (1611).
Women and the Vernacular.
Dante Alighieri: from Letter to Can Grande della Scala, tr. Robert S. Haller.
Erasmus: from The Abbot and the Learned Lady, tr. Craig Thompson.
Catherine of Siena: from Letter to Raymond of Capua on how she learned to write, tr. Jane Tylus.
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: from Response to “Sor Filotea”, tr. Margaret Sayers Peden.
Early Modern Europe.
Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375).
Decameron(Certain sections selected), tr. G.H. McWilliam.
Marguerite de Navarre.
Heptameron(Certain sections selected).
Francis Petrarch (1304-1374).
Letters on familiar matters, tr. Aldo Bernardo.
To Dionigi da Borgo San Sepolcro (On Climbing Mt. Ventoux).
To Boccaccio (On imitation).
Resonance.
Laura Cereta: To Sister Deodata di Leno.
Scattered Rhymes.
During the Life of My Lady Laura (Certain sections selected).
After the Death of My Lady Laura. (Certain sections selected).
Resonances.
Virgil: from Fourth Georgic.
Resonances: Petrarch and His Translators.
Petrarch: Una candida cerva sopra l'erba.
Petrarch: A white doe on the green grass, tr. Robert Durling.
Chiara Matraini: Fera son io di questo ambroso loco.
Chiara Matraini: I am a wild deer in this shady wood, tr. Stortoni & Lille.
Thomas Wyatt: Whoso list to hunt.
Perspectives: Sonnet Sequences and Self-Definition.
Louise Labé (c. 1524-1566), tr. Frank J. Warnke.
When I behold you, your blond tresses crowned.
Lute, companion of my wretched state.
Kiss me again, again, kiss me again!@MBHEADS = Alas, what boots it that not long ago.
Do not reproach me, Ladies, if I've loved.
Michelangelo Buonarotti (1475-1564).
This comes of dangling from the ceiling, tr. Peter Porter and George Bull.
My Lord, in your most gracious face I see, tr. Peter Porter and George Bull.
I wish to want, Lord, what eludes my will, tr. Peter Porter and George Bull.
No block of marble but it does not hide, tr. Peter Porter and Goerge Bull.
How chances it, my Lady, that we must, tr. Peter Porter and George Bull.
Vittoria Colonna, tr. Laura Anna Stortoni and Mary Prentic Lillie.
Between harsh rocks and violent wind.
Whatever life I once had.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616).
1 (“From fairest creatures we desire increase”).
3 (“Look in they glass, and tell the face thou viewest”).
17 (“Who will believe my verse in time to come”).
55 (“Not marble nor the gilded monuments”).
73 (“That time of year thou mayst in me behold”).
87 (“Farewell: thou art too dear for my possessing”).
116 (“Let me not to the marriage of true minds”).
126 (“O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power”).
127 (“In the old age black was not counted fair”).
130 (“My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun”).
Jan Kochanowski (1530-1584).
Laments (Certain sections selected), tr. Stanislaw Baranczak and Seamus Heaney.
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (c. 1651-1695).
She disavows the flattery visible in a portrait of herself, tr. Alan S. Trueblood.
She complains of her lot, tr. Alan S. Trueblood.
She shows distress at being abused for the applause her talent brings, tr. Alan S. Trueblood.
In which she visits moral censure on a rose, tr. Alan S. Trueblood.
She answers suspicions in the rhetoric of tears, tr. Margaret Sayers Peden.
On the death of that most excellent lady, Marquise de Mancera, tr. Alan S. Trueblood.
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527).
The Prince (Certain sections selected), tr. Mark Musa.
Resonance.
Baldessar Castiglione: from The Book of the Courtier.
Sir Thomas More (1477-1535).
Utopia, tr. C.G. Richards.
Perspectives: Literature of Religious Crisis.
Desiderius Erasmus, (c. 1466-1536).
From In Praise of Folly, tr. Betty Radice.
Martin Luther.
From To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, tr. C.M. Jacobs.
From The Bondage of the Will, tr. Ernst F. Winter.
Thomas Muntzer.
From Sermon to the Princes, tr. Robert A. Fowkes.
Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582).
From Interior Castle, tr. E. Allison Peers.
Saint John of the Cross.
The Dark Night.
Domenico Scandella (known asMenocchio).
From His trials before the Inquisition (1583-1599), tr. John and Anne Tedeschi.
François Rablais (c. 1495-1553).
Gargantua and Pantagruel(Certain sections selected), tr. J.M. Cohen.
Luis Vaz de Camões (c. 1524-1580).
The Lusiads (Certain selections selected), tr. Landeg White.
Resonance.
From Journal of the First Voyage of Vasco de Gama.
Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), Essays, tr.Donald Frame.
Idleness.
Of the power of the imagination.
Of Repentance.
Of Cannibals.
Resonance.
Jean de Léry: from History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil.
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616).
Don Quixote (Certain sections selected) tr. J. M. Cohen.
Resonance.
Jorge Luis Borges: Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote.
Lope de Vega (1562-1635).
Fuenteovejuna.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616).
The Tempest.
Resonance.
Aimé Césaire: from A Tempest.
John Donne (1572-1631).
The Sun Rising.
Elegy: Going to Bed.
Air and Angels.
A Valediction: Forbidding mourning.
The Relic.
The Computation.
Holy Sonnets (Certain sections selected).
The Devotions (Certain sections selected).
Sermons(Certain sections selected).
John Milton (1608-1674).
On the Late Massacre in Piedmont.
When I Consider How My Light is Spent.
Paradise Lost (Certain sections selected).
Anne Bradstreet (c. 1612-1672).
The Author to her book.
To my Dear and Loving Husband.
A Letter to her husband, absent upon public employment.
Mesoamerica: Before Columbus and After Cortés.
The Legend of the Suns (Nahuatl, 16th century), tr. Leon-Portilla and Lobanov.
From Popol Vuh: The Mayan Council Book (Quiché Maya, 16th century.), tr. Dennis Tedlock.
Prologue.
Creation.
Hunahpu and Xbalanque in the Underworld.
The Final Creation of Humans.
Migration and the Division of Languages.
The Death of the Quiché Forefathers.
Retrieving Writings from the East.
Conclusion.
Songs of the Aztec Nobility (c. 1520-1560), tr. Bierhorst and Damrosch.
Make your beginning, you who sing.
Burnishing them as sunshot jades.
Flowers are our only adornment.
I cry, I grieve, knowing we're to go away.
Your hearts are shaken down as paintings, Moctezuma.
I strike it up—here!—I, the singer.
From Fish Song: It was composed when we were conquered.
From Water-Pouring Song.
In the flower house of sapodilla you remain a flower.
Moctezuma, you creature of heaven, you sing in Mexico.
Perspectives: The Conquest and its Aftermath.
Christopher Columbus.
Letter to Sovereigns (4 March 1493), tr. M. Zamora.
From Letter to Raphael Sanchez, tr. P.L. Ford.
From Letter to Ferdinand and Isabella (7 July 1503).
Bernal Díaz del Castillo.
From The True History of the Conquest of New Spain (c. 1565), tr. A. P. Maudslay.
Bernardino de Sahagún.
From General History of the Affairs of New Spain, tr. Anderson and Dibble.
From The Aztec-Spanish Dialogues of 1524, tr. J. Jorge Klor de Alva.
Hernando Ruíz de Alarcón.
From Treatise on the Superstitions of the Natives of this New Spain, tr. Coe & Whittaker.
Resonance.
Julio Cortázar: Axolotl.
Bartolomé de las Casas.
From Apologetic History, tr. George Sanderlin.
Sor Juana Inéz de la Cruz.
From The Loa for the Auto Sacramental of The Divine Narcissus, tr. Peters and Domieier
This item has been replaced by Longman Anthology of World Literature, Volume I (A,B,C), The: The Ancient World, The Medieval Era, and The Early Modern Period, 2/E.
Longman Anthology of World Literature, Volume I (A,B,C), The: The Ancient World, The Medieval Era, and The Early Modern Period, 2/E
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