Bacchic Scene, 1627

Nicholas Poussin ( France, 1594 - 1665)

Oil on canvas

Staalich Museum, Kassel

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POUSSIN'S WORLD: TWO SCENES
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Here a young woman with no clothes on, mild,
marmoreal, hairless, handsome, dignified,
decants into an equally undressed child
(too young to walk, yet soon to be pie-eyed)
splashed wine. Elsewhere, one naked nymph, astride
a satyr piggy-back, points a stately hand
out of the picture toward some route implied.
Design, not myth, made it. So the brain-land
Arcadia dreamed in paint. Neither the rose
smelled nor the sweat of actions in this June
of life's sweet counterfeit which art bestows.
Goats, gods, girls, and babies, blissfully immune
to dirt, fatigue, and morals, still compose
their own debauched, cherubic afternoon.
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Richmond Lattimore (American, 1906-1984)
Poems from Three Decades
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1972
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You can also find me at:

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http://livinginthepostcard.blog.terra.com.br
http://www.fotolog.com/binkawest
http://ameiavoz.blog.terra.com.br
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