JORGE LUIS BORGES
The Engraving
Why, as [ turn the housekey in the lock,
Do I see again with the old astonishment
[n my mind's eye the engraving of a Tartar
Roping from horseback the grey wolf of the steppes?
The animal strains against the rope forever.
The horseman gazes at it. Memory
Restores
to
me this picture from a book
Whose language and whose color I don't recall.
[t has been many years since I last saw it.
Sometimes memory really frightens me.
[n its vast palaces and winding grottos
(Said Augustine) there are so many things.
Above all, hell and paradise are there.
To summon hell , whatever may contain
Your slightest and most ordinary day
Or any of your nightmares, is enough;
To summon paradise, the love oflovers,
Freshness of water in the thirsty throat,
Reason and the exercise of reason,
The high gloss of unchanging ebony,
And 0, - both moon and shade - the gold of Virgil.
Museum
Quatrain
Others have died but that took place in the past,
the season, as everyone knows, most perfectly suited
for death.
How can it be that
r,
a subject ofYaqub Amansur,
wi ll die as roses and Aristotles had to die?
from
Divan de Almotasil1 el Magrebf
(12th
Century)
