Love Letter from Balzac to Countess Ewelina Hańska

My beloved angel,

I am nearly mad about you, as much as one can be mad: I cannot bring together two ideas that you do not interpose yourself between them.

I can no longer think of nothing but you. In spite of myself, my imagination carries me to you.

I grasp you, I kiss you, I caress you, a thousand of the most amorous caresses take possession of me.

As for my heart, there you will always be - very much so. I have a delicious sense of you there.

But my God, what is to become of me, if you have deprived me of my reason?

Lorenzo Bartolini | Buste d'Ewelina Hańska, 1837 | Musée Bertrand, à Châteauroux, France

Wisława Szymborska | Ruben's Women

Herculasses, a feminine fauna.

Naked as the crashing of barrels.

Cooped up atop trampled beds.

They sleep with mouths poised to crow.

Their pupils have retreated in the depths,

and penetrate to the heart of their glands,

trickling yeast into their blood.

Peter Paul Rubens | Venus in Front of the Mirror, (1614-1615) | Museo Nacional del Prado

Daughters of the Baroque. Dough bloats in a bowl,

baths are steaming, wines are blushing.

piglets of cloud are dashing across the sky,

trumpets neigh in physical alarm.

O pumpkinned, O excessive ones,

doubled by your unveiling,

trebled by your violent poses,

fat love dishes.

Peter Paul Rubens | Mars and Rhea Silvia, 1617

Their skinny sisters got up earlier,

before dawn broke within the painting,

and no one saw them walking single file

on the unpainted side of the canvas.

Exiles of style. Ribs all counted.

Birdlike feet and hands.

They try to ascend on gaunt shoulderblades.

The thirteenth century would have given them a golden backdrop.

The twentieth, a silver screen.

But the seventeenth has nothing for the flat-chested.

For even the sky curves in relief -

curvaceous angles, a curvaceous god -

a moustached Apollo astride a sweaty steed

enters the steaming bedchamber.

Wisława Szymborska (Polish poet, essayist, translato, and recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature, 1923-2012)

Wisława Szymborska | Non ce l’ho con la primavera, 1993

Non ce l'ho con la primavera

perché è tornata.

Non la incolpo

perché adempie come ogni anno

ai suoi doveri.

Marc Chagall | Fleurs de printemps, 1930

Wisława Szymborska | Ritratto di Donna / Portrait of a Woman

Deve essere a scelta.

Cambiare, purché niente cambi.

È facile, impossibile, difficile, ne vale la pena.

Ha gli occhi, se occorre, ora azzurri, ora grigi,

neri, allegri, senza motivo pieni di lacrime.

Egon Schiele | Seated Woman with Bent Knees, 1917 | National Gallery of Prague

Tamara de Lempicka | Russian Dancer, 1924

Russian Dancer was created in 1924 by Tamara de Lempicka (Polish Art Déco painter, 1894-1980).

The painting is part of the Collection of Polish businessman and art collector Marek Roefler/ Villa la Fleur, Konstancin-Jeziorna, Poland.

Russian Dancer, posthumously titled in reference to the Ballets Russes - the troupe founded by Serge Diaghilev, which took Paris by storm in the 1910s and 1920s with its innovative choreography and gleaming costumes and sets designed by Russian artists-portrays a woman dressed in folk attire from southern Russia.

Tamara de Lempicka | Russian Dancer, 1924

Wisława Szymborska | Life While-You-Wait / Una vita all'istante, 1996

Life While-You-Wait

Performance without rehearsal.

Body without alterations.

Head without premeditation.

I know nothing of the role I play.

I only know it’s mine. I can’t exchange it.

Herman Jean Joseph Richir

Wisława Szymborska | Il poeta ed il mondo

Descritta dal comitato per il Nobel come il "Mozart della poesia" ma con "qualcosa della furia di Beethoven", Wisława Szymborska (1923-2012) è stata insignita del Premio Nobel per la letteratura nel 1996 "per una poesia che, con ironica precisione, permette al contesto storico e biologico di venire alla luce in frammenti d'umana realtà".

Il discorso della poetessa Wislawa Szymborska alla consegna del premio Nobel

7 dicembre 1996

(✔en) In un discorso, a quanto pare, la prima frase è sempre la più difficile.

Ebbene, la prima è comunque andata.

Ma ho la sensazione che anche le frasi successive - la terza, la sesta, la decima e così via, fino all'ultima parola - saranno altrettanto difficili, perché si suppone che io parli di poesia.

Pawel Kuczynski

Wisława Szymborska | The poet and the world

Described by the Nobel committee as the "Mozart of poetry" but with "something of the fury of Beethoven", Wisława Szymborska (1923-2012) was awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature "for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality".

Wisława Szymborska | Nobel Lecture

December 7, 1996

(✔it) They say the first sentence in any speech is always the hardest. Well, that one's behind me, anyway. But I have a feeling that the sentences to come - the third, the sixth, the tenth, and so on, up to the final line - will be just as hard, since I'm supposed to talk about poetry.

I've said very little on the subject, next to nothing, in fact. And whenever I have said anything, I've always had the sneaking suspicion that I'm not very good at it. This is why my lecture will be rather short. All imperfection is easier to tolerate if served up in small doses.

Jonathan Wolstenholme