Up there in Pavia’s fine royal dungeons Theoderic’s Visigoth ( rope or wire ? ) was tightened around his splitting head-ache till the two eyes ( consoled by philosophy ) first bulged and then popped.So what meaneth Boethius’s sublime ” Nunc fluens facit tempus, nunc stans aeternitatum ” at all at all ? ( where’s the subject, noun, etc. ? )
I’ve loved and I’ve chased Boethius’s sublime Nunc Stans. He writes ( he doesn’t say how …. ) that it “makes” the eternal. ( In it time stands still ;but he is not meaning ” endlessly during ” time, I take it ? ) And his Nunc Fluens ( like honey ? Like sun-flower oil ? like butter melting under an Italian sun ? ) “makes” time. And you can encounter both in Beethoven’s Opus 131, can you ? In Mr. B’s time music’s eternal ? Or is “nunc” an adverb after all ? And is ” tempus” meant as a nominative ? Know what I mean, my two eyes bulging ? Do yours ? Now ?
Hmmm. Must ask around in New York, my Quasi Una Storia” for 13 Strings enduring and durating and circling sneakily around my own Nunc Stans. Plenty of time – sorry, eternity – for both ? Quasi.