In the tepidarium (1881)

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema

The three beggars from Antichrist

back-then:

‘The Sign Of The Cross’ 1932

Si el mundo es el lenguaje

Y el lenguaje es mi enemigo

¿Me convierte eso en enemigo del mundo?

Oh, Barbra

Momentáneo muestreo de mi paso por La Vida

For many years you envied

the hirsute, the he-man type.

No longer: now you fondle

your almost feminine flesh

with mettled satisfaction,

imagining that you are

sinless and all-sufficient,

snug in the den of yourself,

Madonna and Bambino:

Sing, Big Baby, sing lullay.

(…)

Should dreams haunt you, heed them not,

for all, both sweet and horrid,

are jokes in dubious taste,

too jejune to have truck with.

Sleep, Big Baby, sleep your fill.

W. H. Auden (fragments of “A Lullaby”)

Forum Romanum