(no subject)

[troisoiseaux]

How is a Greek chorus like a lawyer
they're both in the business of searching for a precedent
finding an analogy
locating an example
so as to be able to say
this terrible thing we're witnessing now is
not unique you know it happened before
or something much like it
we're not at a loss how to think about this
we're not without guidance
there is a pattern
we can find an historically parallel case
and file it away under

ANTIGONE BURIED ALIVE FRIDAY AFTERNOON
compare case histories 7, 17 and 49

now i could dig up those case histories,
about Danaos and Lykourgos and the sons of Phineas
locked up in a room or a cave or their own dark mind
it wouldn't help you
it didn't help me
it's Friday afternoon
there goes Antigone to be buried alive
is there
any way
we can say
this is normal
rational
forgivable
or even in the widest definition just

- Anne Carson, Antigonick [x]

Comments

[mme_n_b]

Oh, this is good! Thank you!

"—Not the first!—Woe! Woe! By no human soul is it conceivable, that more than one human creature has ever sunk into a depth of wretchedness like this, or that the first in her writhing death-agony should not have atoned in the sight of all-pardoning Heaven for the guilt of all the rest! The misery of this one pierces me to the very marrow, and harrows up my soul; thou art grinning calmly over the doom of thousands!"

[troisoiseaux]

Ooh, I also like that quote.

[osprey_archer]

This is lovely. (Did you read this at law school? It feels related, if only because of the "How is a Greek chorus like a lawyer...")

[troisoiseaux]

Did you read this at law school?

No, I just found it floating around on the internet, but it definitely appeals to me for that reason— reading Frederick Lewis Allen's Only Yesterday recently had me thinking about how one of the things I find really interesting about history is seeing the ways that the present echoes the past, and this poem, like, tied that mental thread to another one, basically of how the law school classes that I've enjoyed and learned from the most are the ones with the best stories..? The tl;dr of it all is that you can draw a direct line from my lifelong love of history to the fact that, for all the stress of it, I genuinely do enjoy law school. (Or, as the even tl;dr-er version: it's Valerie Tripp's fault that I'm going to be a lawyer.)

[slashmarks]

Hah. I tell the undergrads if they want to go to law school, a history BA is good preparation for it.

[osprey_archer]

Valerie Tripp is probably proud!

[ermingarden]

I love this passage so much! (Esp. as a classics major turned law student...)

[troisoiseaux]

Right?! The classics/history major to law school pipeline is REAL. (My major was in international affairs, which is really just history by another name.)

[kore]

I love that book, SO MUCH. (Well I don't like the drawings a lot. But everything else is so great, it makes up for the art.)

[troisoiseaux]

I need to read it! But it doesn't seem like it would really work as an e-book, and I don't have a lot of time or brain-space for reading physical books, these days... definitely someday, though.

[dolorosa_12]

This is fantastic.

[adore]

This is wonderful! Thank you for sharing it!