Give sorrow words.

 “I just feel like all the sand is at the bottom of the hour glass or something.”  ― Adam

 

“Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break.”  ― William Shakespeare, Macbeth

“Now something so sad has hold of us that the breath leaves and we can't even cry.” ― Charles Bukowski

“And then it was, that grief and pain made themselves known to me as never before. Note this, because I knew the full absurdity of Fate and Fortune. And perhaps the description of this, brief as it is, may give consolation to another. The worst takes its time to come, and then to pass. The truth is, you cannot prepare anyone for this, nor convey an understanding of it through language. It must be known. And this I would wish on no one in the world.” ― Anne Rice, Pandora

    The words and images above are just an expression of what I'm feeling these days. I could have used my own words, what I've been writing, but some of the lines are too personal and in order to share or publish something I need to feel a little detached from it. Something that the passing of time provides. But I feel that sharing these emotions with the help of images and words is liberating and keeps my mind busy. I think it also comes from my love for cinema and literature, 'cause re-watching films about loss and grief, or reading about it, makes me feel that someone else understands what I'm going through right now. Feel united to those characters, to those writers, other people that has lost someone or are enduring with a relative's severe disease, also helps. Besides I've discovered, thanks to a friend, this amazing blog: 'Ekphora: The Grief Project'. And all this made me think that someone else has been there before and that this too shall pass. Positive thinking is the only way to cope with all this bad fate or fortune I'm having, as good old Shakespeare would put it.

― Still Life, The Horrors

Ph.: Marine Vacth by Paolo Roversi for Vogue Italia (Jan. 2014), The Tree of Life, 2011; Jane Eyre, 2011; Virginia Woolf in Venice, Lupe Jelena, Only Lovers Left Alive, 2013; last-half-moon, Cría cuervos..., 1975; adessive, Misma Andrews, Skammen, 1968; Persona, 1966; À coeur joie, 1967; To the Wonder, 2012; Zerkalo, 1975, Trois couleurs: Bleu, 1993.

In love with Shakespeare

Leer a Shakespeare es un placer. Resulta delicioso ponerse en la piel de una Julieta profundamente enamorada, una Ofelia al borde del abismo o una Helena despechada. Quizás mis elogios resulten extremos y exagerados, pero nunca otro autor ha sido capaz de despertarme tales arrebatos de pasión, avivados por la franca empatía que siento en las aventuras y desventuras sufridas por los personajes de las obras.

Todo, absolutamente todo lo que las componen es merecedor de alabanza. La frescura de los personajes secundarios; esos mensajeros, mayordomos y sirvientas siempre tan perspicaces, elocuentes y con un británico sentido del humor que en algunos casos logra alcanzar un elevado protagonismo. Esas bucólicas escenas en estivales jardines palaciegos, en salones que remiten a antiguas villas romanas o místicos y mágicos bosques como en el Sueño de una noche de verano. Todo ello sumado a un elenco de personajes protagonistas por los que muy pronto se empieza a sentir apego, afecto y simpatía. Ambientes de ensoñación que nos permiten evadirnos de la realidad, ya estemos en el sofá de nuestro salón con una manta y una taza de té, en el ajetreado metro o autobús urbano o en una cargante clase de esa asignatura que tanto aborrecemos. 

Se han producido cientos de películas y decenas de canciones dedicadas a los textos del dramaturgo. Desde bandas de metal progresivo como Dream Theather con Pull me under dedicada a Hamlet, hasta los grandes Dire Straits con Romeo and Juliet (más tarde versionada por The Killers), pasando por nuestros queridos The Smiths y grandes compositores de música clásica como Prokofiev con su fantástico Montescos y Capuletos, o la Marcha Nupcial de Mendelsohn (1826) para Sueño de una noche de verano. No han sido los primeros ni serán los últimos, porque la inspiración que proporciona el literato inglés es inagotable.

Aquí la que escribe, muy dada al apasionamiento imperioso, os recomienda: Sueño de una noche de verano, Hamlet, Romeo y Julieta, Mucho ruido y pocas nueces y El mercader de Venecia (descargables en pdf). Os dejo también la canción de los Smiths dedicada a la "supuesta" hermana de Shakespeare y la genialísima Romeo and Juliet de Dire Straits ;)

Sonnet 54

The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem

for that sweet odour which doth in it live.

The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye

as the perfumed tincture of the roses,

hang on such thorns and play as wantonly

when summer's breath their masked buds discloses:

But, for their virtue only is their show,

they live unwoo'd and unrespected fade,

die to themselves.

Sweet roses do not so;

of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made:

and so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,

when that shall fade, my verse distills your truth.

- William Shakespeare

Ph.: natalie nguyen, the dreamers, olga onischenko, abby powell, the virgin suicides