ZORA! ZORA! ZORA!
Nearing the end of Zora Neale Hurston's epic autobiography , DUST TRACKS ON A ROAD, (1942, 1995), after I had already snorted, then annotated "Gone girl!" parted the pages of her, "Appendix," I had imaged that I was done! What else could she have to say, after that?
Plenty!
Too much to share too rich to bear!
Okay ! I will share a tiny taste of "My People! My People!" from the "Appendix" but it is also online. But first, her closing paragraph of the autobiography swept me away:
"I have no race prejudice of any kind. My kinfolks, and my 'skinfolks' are dearly loved. My own circumstances of everyday life is there. But I see their virtues and vices everywhere I look. So I give you all my right hand of fellowship and love, and hope the same for you. In my eyesight, you lose nothing by not looking just like me. I will remember you all for my good thoughts, and I ask you kindly to do the same for me. Not only just me. You who play the zigzag lightning of power over the world, with the grumbling thunder in your wake, think kindly of those who walk in the dust. And you who walk in humble places, think kindly too, of others. There has been no proof in the world so far that you would be less arrogant if you held the lever of power in your hands. Let us all be kissing friends. Consider that with tolerance and patience, we godly demons may breed a noble world in a few hundred generations or so. Maybe all of us who do not have the good fortune to meet or meet again, in this world, will meet at a barbecue ."
Of course, early Greek authors, Diodorus Siculus and Homer both differ markedly with Zora's Neale Hurston's claim about "no proof in the world that you would be less arrogant if you held the lever of power in your hands." These icons write that the Ethiopians of old were such people as these, who were renown men of justice, truth, and godliness. Each has said so in their works: Diodorus Siculus in "The Library of History," and Homer in "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey."
Now, a tiny taste of "My People! My People!" from Zora's "Appendix":
"Like all mortals, I have been shaped by the chisel in the hand of Chance--bulged out here by a sense of victory, shrunken there by a press of failure and the knowledge of unworthiness . But it has been given to me to strive with life, and to conquer the fear of death. I have been correlated to the world so that I know the indifference of the sun to human emotions. I know that destruction and construction are but two faces of Dame Nature, and that it is nothing to her if I choose to make personal tragedy out of her unbreakable laws.
"So I ask of her a few things. May I never do good consciously, nor evil unconsciously. Let my evil be known to me in advance of my acts, and my good when Nature wills. May I be granted a just mind and a timely death .
"While I am still far below the allotted span of time , and notwithstanding , I feel that I have lived. I have the joy and pain of strong friendships. I have served and been served. I have made enemies of which I am not ashamed. I have been faithless , and then I have been faithful and steadfast until the blood ran down into my shoes. I have loved unselfishly with the ardor of a strong heart, and I have hated with all the power of my soul. What waits for me in the future? I do not know. I cannot even imagine , and I am glad for that. But already , I have touched the four corners of the horizon , for from hard searching it seems to me that tears and laughter, love and hate, make up the sum of life."
P. 231-232, 264-265.
Friday, March 30, 2018
ZORA!
ZORA! ZORA! ZORA!
Nearing the end of Zora Neale Hurston's epic autobiography , DUST TRACKS ON A ROAD, (1942, 1995), after I had already snorted, then annotated "Gone girl!" parted the pages of her, "Appendix," I had imaged that I was done! What else could she have to say, after that?
Plenty!
Too much to share too rich to bear!
Okay ! I will share a tiny taste of "My People! My People!" from the "Appendix" but it is also online. But first, her closing paragraph of the autobiography swept me away:
"I have no race prejudice of any kind. My kinfolks, and my 'skinfolks' are dearly loved. My own circumstances of everyday life is there. But I see their virtues and vices everywhere I look. So I give you all my right hand of fellowship and love, and hope the same for you. In my eyesight, you lose nothing by not looking just like me. I will remember you all for my good thoughts, and I ask you kindly to do the same for me. Not only just me. You who play the zigzag lightning of power over the world, with the grumbling thunder in your wake, think kindly of those who walk in the dust. And you who walk in humble places, think kindly too, of others. There has been no proof in the world so far that you would be less arrogant if you held the lever of power in your hands. Let us all be kissing friends. Consider that with tolerance and patience, we godly demons may breed a noble world in a few hundred generations or so. Maybe all of us who do not have the good fortune to meet or meet again, in this world, will meet at a barbecue ."
Of course, early Greek authors, Diodorus Siculus and Homer both differ markedly with Zora's Neale Hurston's claim about "no proof in the world that you would be less arrogant if you held the lever of power in your hands." These icons write that the Ethiopians of old were such people as these, who were renown men of justice, truth, and godliness. Each has said so in their works: Diodorus Siculus in "The Library of History," and Homer in "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey."
Now, a tiny taste of "My People! My People!" from Zora's "Appendix":
"Like all mortals, I have been shaped by the chisel in the hand of Chance--bulged out here by a sense of victory, shrunken there by a press of failure and the knowledge of unworthiness . But it has been given to me to strive with life, and to conquer the fear of death. I have been correlated to the world so that I know the indifference of the sun to human emotions. I know that destruction and construction are but two faces of Dame Nature, and that it is nothing to her if I choose to make personal tragedy out of her unbreakable laws.
"So I ask of her a few things. May I never do good consciously, nor evil unconsciously. Let my evil be known to me in advance of my acts, and my good when Nature wills. May I be granted a just mind and a timely death .
"While I am still far below the allotted span of time , and notwithstanding , I feel that I have lived. I have the joy and pain of strong friendships. I have served and been served. I have made enemies of which I am not ashamed. I have been faithless , and then I have been faithful and steadfast until the blood ran down into my shoes. I have loved unselfishly with the ardor of a strong heart, and I have hated with all the power of my soul. What waits for me in the future? I do not know. I cannot even imagine , and I am glad for that. But already , I have touched the four corners of the horizon , for from hard searching it seems to me that tears and laughter, love and hate, make up the sum of life."
P. 231-232, 264-265.