Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate

[supertailz]

I'm painting poetry on my bedroom wall. I'm either a teenager or a coffee shop; so I'm going with the latter. There are a bunch of reasons for this - some of which revolve around the fact that I'm really not, inherently, a visual person. For me text is so much more evocative than pictures. But also because I have such viscerally positive reactions

Comments

[teaberryblue]

When I was a teenager, my walls were covered in...Oscar Wilde quotes, mostly?

I used to have an apartment with a very long, very narrow hall to get to the kitchen, and I had "I live at the end of a five and a half minute hallway" painted on the wall.

I like the meta-aspect of Dante, but the actual meaning is...you don't actually want to abandon hope when you enter your room. What about the last line of Purgatorio? Not as instantly recognizable but more optimistic?

puro e disposto a salire a le stelle. (which is one that I've always liked, so there's a personal penchant there)

There's also

e veggi vostra via da la divina
distar cotanto, quanto si discorda

(one or both lines would either work over a doorway)

(And I actually really really like the idea of a tattoo that says "mine." It's incredibly appealing to me.)

[supertailz]

The last line of purgatorio I kinda like? I also am tempted, for amusement's sake, to do this: Seggendo in piuma/in fama non si vien. Perhaps Qui si convien lasciare ogne sospetto/ogne viltà convien che qui sia morta?

[teaberryblue]

I like the one about lying in bed!

I like them both, actually. The second one works for the same reason I recommended the one I did-- because it's about letting go of worldly pains before entering. Sort of the opposite of abandoning hope?

[supertailz]

There's a Dorothy Parker poem about why bother getting out of bed at all that I had a girlfriend in highschool who wanted it painted above her bed.

[thumbelinablues]

Abandon All Hope + Dante = "...di questo fondo/ Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero/ Senza tema d'infamia, ti rispondo." :-)

The Alpha Rev lyrics are nice, but if you're going to take the time to paint something up there, I'd stick with something that's been with you longer. What else are you painting? Any Millay? Which Stallings?

Just finished Olives. Still processing.

[supertailz]

Hey, you have totally made it out alive from my bedroom previously:)

Yeah, which I think is part of the not-lyrics thing I'm feeling. So far I've done LC's "I heard of a man" on the closet door and I think Homecoming is up next, somewhere by the bed. And then yours. And then Cope's Orange. After that there are a couple more LC, at least one Millay (I am angsting about whether Time Does Not Bring Relief is too depressing) and probably many more Stallings:)

I'm still working my way through? So I read like half in one go on the subway and then had a panic fit of realising it would be one soon. So now I'm skittering around in it and I've gone over most of them once, but still digging in and trying to wrap my brain around them?

We should talk about it soon?

[thunderemerald]

Oh, that Alpha Rev lyric. THAT particular one. Yes.

[supertailz]

Although I do keep expecting there to be another word there? With gentle time will COME an ending? With gentle time we'll be an ending? SOMETHING.

[thunderemerald]

Oh, interesting. I never thought of that, actually. Each one lends a sort of different connotation, though. I like the original one best.

[ecmyers]

I'm thinking of you as a teenage coffee shop.