Ironia ou Os Colombos

Nowadays the sea has given in, and submits to

all our laws:

we do not look for something constructed by Palla's hand,

for something famous, in which kings pull on the oars,

for an Argo;

any little boat can wander over the deep.

Every boundary-stone has been moved, and cities

have built walls in new territory.

The world is opened up to travel, and has left nothing

where it was before:

the Indian drinks the icy Araxes,

the Persians drink the Elbe and Rhine.

In later years there will be generations

for whom Ocean will loosen the chains

of nature, the earth will be reavealed in its immensity,

Tethys will uncover new worlds,

and earth's furthest boundary will not be Thule.*

Esta profecia foi cumprida pelo meu pai Cristóvão Colombo no ano de 1492.

Fernando Colombo, na sua cópia da Medeia de Séneca, de acordo com

Martha Nussbaum (1994), “Serpents in the Soul. A Reading of Seneca’s Medea”

in Clauss & Johnston (eds.) (1997), Medea. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

*tradução de H. M. Hine, Seneca. Medea. Aris & Phillips, Warminster: 2000.

imagem: A Descoberta da América por Cristóvão Colombo (1959), de Dalí

@ Salvador Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, Flórida.

[Nunc iam cessit pontus et omnes/ patitur leges:/ non Palladia compacta manu/ regum referens inclita remos/ quaeritur Argo;/ quaelibet altum cumba pererrat./ Terminus omnis motus et urbes/ muros terra posuere noua,/ nil qua fuerat sede reliquit/ peruius orbis:/ Indus gelidum potat Araxen,/ Albin Persae Rhenumque bibunt;/ uenient annis saecula seris,/ quibus Oceanus uincula rerum/ laxet et ingens pateat tellus/ Tethysque nouos detegat orbes/ nec sit terris ultima Thule.]