One of my compaisani has a marvelous blog called Laudator temporis acti ("One who praises times gone by"). He has a stupendous post on "happiness" and "macarism" which, though dense, is worth the effort. Good work! o{]:¬) Excerpt:
Recipes for Happiness I recently posted two translations of Martial’s recipe for happiness (10.47), by Mildmay Fane and Henry Howard. Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s Recipe For Happiness Khaborovsk Or Anyplace also has much to recommend it: One grand boulevard with trees with one grand cafe in sun with strong black coffee in very small cups. One not necessarily very beautiful man or woman who loves you. One fine day.
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Ferlinghetti is a fine poet – poet laureate of San Francisco! He paints
beautiful word-pictures.
Though I differ politically, I have a great fondness for the beat poets of
San Francisco – their thirst for life has a palpable quality. Last year,
of course, we celebrated the centenary of the birth of that Godfather of the
Beats, Kenneth Rexroth
(confession: I’m privileged to count his daughter among my friends, so I’m
somewhat prejudiced)
From his “Venice, May Day”
But
This music, and the incense,
And the solemn columned thought,
And the poem of a virgin,
And you and me, and Venice
In the May Day evening on the
Fiery waters, we have our own
Eternity, so fleeting that they
Can never touch it, or even
Know that it has passed them by.
Having “our own eternity”: he speaks in the poem of sharing the moment – vespers
in San Giorgio – with someone he loves. To me, that’s happiness; that’s beatitude.
Sharing a beautiful moment with a special person. A foretaste of paradise.