Here's I...and then this...

It was a strange day.

Imagine you're trying to do a routine sight translation of the Aeneid, in front of the whole class, but the Words on the page keep moving away from your eyes as they scan the page. That's annoying, right? It's as though they don't know their purpose - they were put there, a construction of Man, to be used by Man for Man. But they didn't know that. The Words...suddenly weren't conscious of that.

It was an interesting experience. The Words on the page suddenly developed a life of their own and decided they simply did not want to be read.

Some would certainly argue that this was a simple misunderstanding, and that the real motive behind the Words' attempts at eluding their superior was avoiding translation. It stands to reason, too. Words were put there to be read, as they are, taken objectively, always. The Words were understandably disgusted with my desire to force a meaning from them that they did not necessarily desire.

I would be upset as well. After all, do we not endow all our creations with a bit of our own consciousness?

Of course we do. Every creation of Man must relate to Man - otherwise it is of no use to us at all. What's the point of trying to use some invention or construct of Man that no person can actually understand? That's a natural paradox...if someone made it, someone can use it. But we aren't talking about material Things here, we're talking about Words. No one "makes" a Word or Words. Vergil, the great epic poet of late Rome, did not create Words when he wrote the Aeneid. He merely arranged them, imbuing them with his consciousness and his mindpower, his emotion and his will to encourage them to put forth the meaning he intended.

I found myself thinking all that, and at that moment in time, decided it was a gross violation of the will of the Words for me to attempt to squeeze them into some meaning they neither wanted nor deserved.

As soon as I came to that realization, the Words happily meandered back to their rightful place on the page. At Phoebi nondum patiens immanis in antro bacchatur vates, magnum si pectore possit excussisse deum...

And it was good.