redneck_penguin

#pompeii: young love

Their love was sudden, but it was strong; it filled all the sources of their life. Heart—brain—sense—imagination, all were its ministers and priests. As you take some obstacle from two objects that have a mutual attraction, they met, and united at once; their wonder was, that they had lived separate so long. And it was natural that they should so love. Young, beautiful, and gifted—of the same birth, and the same soul—there was poetry in their very union. They imagined the heavens smiled upon their affection. As the persecuted seek refuge at the shrine, so they recognized in the altar of their love an asylum from the sorrows of earth; they covered it with flowers—

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Crossposts: http://redneck-penguin.livejournal.com/163923.html

#pompeii: Sunshine in a garden

THE sun shone gaily into that beautiful chamber in the house of Glaucus, which I have before said is now called the 'Room of Leda'. The morning rays entered through rows of small casements at the higher part of the room, and through the door which opened on the garden, that answered to the inhabitants of the southern cities the same purpose that a greenhouse or conservatory does to us. The size of the garden did not adapt it for exercise, but the various and fragrant plants with which it was filled gave a luxury to that indolence so dear to the dwellers in a sunny clime. And now the odorous, fanned by a gentle wind creeping from the adjacent sea, scattered themselves over that chamber, whose walls vied with the richest colors of the most glowing flowers. Besides the gem of the room--the painting of Leda and Tyndarus--in the centre of each compartment of the walls were set other pictures of exquisite beauty. In one you saw Cupid leaning on the knees of Venus; in another Ariadne sleeping on the beach, unconscious of the perfidy of Theseus.

permalink: http://blog.jimmorgan.us/?p=5558
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Crossposts: http://redneck-penguin.livejournal.com/163413.html

#pompeii: Pardon me while I giggle like I am in junior high

'Taste this Lesbian, my Pansa,' said Sallust; 'it is excellent.'

'It is not very old,' said Glaucus, 'but it has been made precocious, like
ourselves, by being put to the fire:--the wine to the flames of Vulcan--we
to those of his wife--to whose honour I pour this cup.'

'It is delicate,' said Pansa, 'but there is perhaps the least particle too
much of rosin in its flavor.'

permalink: http://blog.jimmorgan.us/?p=5555
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Crossposts: http://redneck-penguin.livejournal.com/162900.html

Pompeii: Hast thou ever been in love?

'Tell me, Clodius,' said the Greek at last, 'hast thou ever been in
love?'

'Yes, very often.'

'He who has loved often,' answered Glaucus, 'has loved never. There is
but one Eros, though there are many counterfeits of him.'

'The counterfeits are not bad little gods, upon the whole,' answered
Clodius.

~from The Last Days of Pompeii

permalink: http://blog.jimmorgan.us/?p=5550
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Crossposts: http://redneck-penguin.livejournal.com/162527.html

Pompeii: a microcosm

Pompeii was the miniature of the civilization of that age. Within the narrow compass of its walls was contained, as it were, a specimen of every gift which luxury offered to power. In its minute but glittering shops, its tiny palaces, its baths, its forum, its theatre, its circus--in the energy yet corruption, in the refinement yet the vice, of its people, you beheld a model of the whole empire. It was a toy, a plaything, a showbox, in which the gods seemed pleased to keep the representation of the great monarchy of earth, and which they afterwards hid from time, to give to the wonder of posterity--the moral of the
maxim, that under the sun there is nothing new.

permalink: http://blog.jimmorgan.us/?p=5546
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Crossposts: http://redneck-penguin.livejournal.com/161905.html

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