Good morning! Three days and $600 later, I have returned to the Internet, sporting a brand-new screen and display assembly on my MacBook Pro. Ugh. But hurray. It's been a stressful few days, not just with the laptop but with various residual and overlapping matters, and I am hoping that I can iron some of that out this week. Tom is coming home tomorrow and then, beginning on Monday, I'll be entering an insane two-weeks-mostly-on-the-road period--Monson, New York, Vermont. In short, I've got stuff to do.
So, here I am, getting ready to do it. This morning I'll re-engage with my exercise class (another casualty of my computer problems), and then turn to the giant stack of editing that appeared on my desk over the weekend. I've got to address that ASAP, write a syllabus for the Monson class, prep for Sunday's chapbook session, do a bunch of other stuff that I can't even remember off the top of my head. But it will all get done. Thank goodness for computer repair guys who work fast.

Yesterday Teresa and I had our Aeneid phone call, and a few passages rose up to me from that conversation. Here are a couple of them:

Aeolian Vulcan hurried on this work [of making a shield for Aeneas],

As tender light and birdsong from the eaves

Wakened Evander [a local chieftain] in his simple home.

The old man rose, tied on Etruscan sandals,

Draped himself in a tunic, hung a sword belt

And an Arcadian sword from his right shoulder,

While from the other swept a panther skin.

Down from the doorstep two dogs came with him

And closely paced before their master's steps.

After having read so much Wendell Berry over the past the few weeks, I came to this passage with the sense that I'd stepped back into an ancient world that was not so dissimilar from western Kentucky, or central Maine, or western Pennsylvania. Barring the outfit, Evander could be any old farmer waking up early and stepping out onto his land with his dogs. 

Another passage that struck me to the bone was this one, spoken between two very young men who are shortly about to die in battle. I don't think any commentary can do justice to this question, so I'll say nothing about it, and just let you consider it.

Nisus asked, "Is it gods who make me want this,

Or do we make our deadly urges gods?"