國際鬧鐘協會 ※ 台長 YV 努力為眾會員製造「其實你還沒畢業」的感覺 ※ 協會成立緣起:有一天,台長發現她的好朋友幾乎都是外硬內軟的超級大ㄋㄠ種（甚至外軟內軟的ㄋㄠ柿子）! 國際鬧鐘協會(International Coward Association) 於焉誕生!

5,668愛的鼓勵 3訂閱站台

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caligula


在瘋狂暴君卡里古拉眼前討生活的結果，不瘋狂也難！

Margaret Atwood 的敘事詩實在是絕唱！

 

The Last Rational Man

In the reign of Caligula

By Margaret Atwood

 

The last rational man takes his old seat in the Senate.

He's not sure why he's still here.

He must be on some list or other.

Last year there were many more like him,

but they've been picked off one by one.

He bathes daily, and practises slow breathing

and the doctrines of Stoicism.

Lose your calm, he reminds himself,

and you will lost everything.

Nevertheless he's getting tired.

The effort of saying nothing is wearing him down.

The others in their rich men's outfits

banter carefully, sticking to topics

that grow fewer in number; even the weather

is perilous, the sun too,

since the Emperor claims to control the one

and to be the other.

 

Here be comes now, with his chittering retinue

of paid retainers twitchy with bonhomie;

he's gilded and bright as a chariot in false taste,

and just returned from a fresh triumph.

With a grin he lifts his gleaming finger:

baskets of shells cascade onto the floor,

and hte room stinks of dead molluscs.

Look, says the Emperor, it's treasure!

By the power of my supreme divinity

I've defeated the King of the Sea!

His eyes hold the malicious glitter

of a madman who's telling a lie,

and knows it, and dares contradiction.

 

The others cheer.  The last rational man

forces himself to cheer also.

The Emperor's gaze is boring a hole

through the bellowing air straight towards him.

Then they lead in the Emperor's horse,

wreathed in garlands like a belly dancer.

I'm making him a Senator!

trills the Emperor, Greet your new brother!

 

The last rational man finds himself rising.

As he opens his mouth he can see

the red bathwater, his own slit wrists,

his house robbed, his sons headless.

That's only a horse, he says.

The words hang there

hopelessly, like the banners of a city

already defeated, given over to pillagers.

In waht way, thinks the last rational man,

can such a place be said, still, to exist?

 

Silence crystallizes

around his head like a halo of ice.

He stands there.

No one looks at him except the Emperor,

who smiles at him with somehting almost like pity.