The former post was off topic and was removed as it was a violation of our
Great Books spirit.

These forums are being phased out & replaced. Join us at our new
registration-only forums at:

jollyrogerwest.com Great Books forums,
Philosophy Forums,
and booksliterature.com Great Books forums.

Please respect that these are Great Books sites. We far prefer
discussions along the following
lines:

LXXVI



Why is my verse so barren of new pride,

So far from variation or quick change?

Why with the time do I not glance aside

To new-found methods, and to compounds strange?

Why write I still all one, ever the same,

And keep invention in a noted weed,

That every word doth almost tell my name,

Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?

O! know sweet love I always write of you,

And you and love are still my argument;

So all my best is dressing old words new,

Spending again what is already spent:

  For as the sun is daily new and old,

  So is my love still telling what is told.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXII



O! lest the world should task you to recite

What merit lived in me, that you should love

After my death,--dear love, forget me quite,

For you in me can nothing worthy prove;

Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,

To do more for me than mine own desert,

And hang more praise upon deceased I

Than niggard truth would willingly impart:

O! lest your true love may seem false in this

That you for love speak well of me untrue,

My name be buried where my body is,

And live no more to shame nor me nor you.

  For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,

  And so should you, to love things nothing worth.

 	--William Shakespeare

After I wrote this sonnet there appeared to me a miraculous vision in which I saw things that made me
resolve to say no more about this blessed one until I should be capable of writing about her in a nobler
way. -Dante on his inspiration for The Divine Comedy, after falling short of Beatrice\'s splendor in the
Vita Nuova

If it be the wish of Him in whom all things flourish that my life continue for a few years, I hope to
write of her (Beatrice) that which has never been written of any lady. -Dante on his inspiration for The
Divine Comedy