Stibnium - Splendor Noctis

reblog and put in the tags the very first line of one of your favorite albums

Still-life with Fruit and Bottle of Chianti (detail) by Marie Egner  (Austrian painter,1850–1940) Austrian painter

François Boucher (1703–1770), Vulcan Presenting Arms to Venus for Aeneas (details)

talleyrand: i HATE you

fouche: i share the same sentiment

napoleon, in the distance, thinking to himself: ** those two scoundrels sure do hate each other. i’m glad they are too petty to put down their differences to work against m-

*fouche and talleyrand notice napoleon and put down their differences to work against napoleon*

napoleon: are you FUCKING kidding me

fr. “An Oresteia” trans. by Anne Carson

Yellow Irises‏ by Claude Monet + Daffodils by William Wordsworth

You with your precious eyes —

The gods differ from mortals here not because they are above the law but because they possess the insight to avoid breaking it. This marks the difference between gods and mortals perhaps more deeply than death itself: the gods never find themselves in the position of Oedipus, suddenly and unimaginably guilty. They are able to avoid actions whose consequences they cannot control; mortals risk such consequences in their every action. And perhaps it is even a kindness that transgression and death go hand in hand, that those who cannot die need not sin: for one who has broken the law which even the gods fear, the best thing is to die quickly.

-incest, cannibalism, and the rise of the house of atreus, michael kinnucan

So the ubiquitous counsel of the chorus concerning the hero—look what fortune has done here, she used to be on top of the world, don’t count on happiness, don’t believe anyone happy until he is dead—says more than it seems to. In the last analysis, what can one say of mere mortals? A human is just too partial, too speckled and subject and already-half-gone, for anything to be really true or false of him. Is he happy, is she sad? Maybe, a bit, for a time, but really—who can say, who can even care? That’s how it is for humans, unless and until they are tragic. The tragic hero is complete. You can call him unhappy (miserable, utterly broken) even before he is dead. For an instant he is something like divine. And then he dies, because there’s nothing left to do. The center of every tragedy is the image of a human being who has already died but keeps talking, someone whose face is a mask. Antigone says this explicitly—she is already dead; Oedipus acts it out in gouging out his eyes.

-the gods show up, michael kinnucan

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Elegy for 9 Thermidor

Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794) // Antoine de Saint-Just (1767-1794) // Georges Couthon (1755-1794) // Augustin Robespierre (1763-1794) // Philippe Le Bas (1764-1794)

i. Hymne du 9 Thermidor - Etienne-Nicolas Méhul

ii. O Salutaris hostia -  François-Joseph Gossec

the man-god: demons by fyodor dostoyevksy