The old ball and chain

Dear Diary,

Well, it looks like the old ball and chain is back. I'm not referring to Chairlady Mao, at the Chinese editing firm (editing academic and commercial documents), nor even my ex-wife, but T., the woman that first hired me in Cambridge. It's a lot of work for very little money and even less recognition, but it's work. If I'm honest, I actually really enjoy editing academic essays (especially classical studies dissertations), but hermetics is even more interesting. Besides, T. is more reasonable than Chairlady Mao. She's English. She pays up front, and isn't that bothered about deadlines (unlike Mao, who won't pay you at all if you're even just a few minutes late). Unlike academic work, the work isn't cautious in its conclusions, polluted by an almost conspiracy theorist kind of scepticism (which permeats academia). These people are believers, as well as scholars (many of them). They are the ones out there (literally, out beyond the veil that separates us from the spirit world), actually doing the proper work of research, not simply content to pore over documentary and archaeological evidence (which they do as well, many of them). It's very much like Marlowe's Doctor Faustus:

"Settle thy studies Faustus, and begin,
to sound the depth of that thou wilt profess...
bene disserere est finis logices
Is to dispute well logic's chiefest end
Affords this art no greater miracle?...
si peccasse negamus, fallimur, et nulla est in nobis veritas...
These metaphysics of magicians,
And necromantic books are heavenly.
Lines, circles, schemes, letters and characters!
Ay, these are those that Faustus most desires.
O what a world of profit and delight,
Of power, of honour, of omnipotence
Is promised to the stuidious artisan!
All things that move between the quiet poles
Shall be at my command..." (Marlowe, Faust', Act 1, Scene 1, ll.1-2, 6-8, 41, 49-57 [A Text]).

I am no longer reading about fantastic tales, in prosaic novels, but actually living in this Otherworld. The very fabric between fantasy and reality, has been ripped and torn. That is not a psychological analysis, but instead, I have now become so entrenched in this world, that there is no turning back. I have cast my very soul to the hazard, for my sins. For example, there are two books I said I would never translate, because they are dangerous books, ancient grimoires, both of them lost for hundreds of years because they are so secret, and both very nearly lost to the sands of time on account of their heresy. I have begun to translate both of them, for my sins. One of them has already been translated (Giordano Bruno's On Magic) but this other, earlier work, has not been. A Ph.D. student studying this latter work recently approached me, asking for help translating it (he is a scholar of Ancient Greek, not a Latin scholar like myself). I have said I will help him (and at the same time help myself, by publishing a translation of this... esoteric work).

I am a devout Christian, so I should not really have anything to do with this... side of religion: magic. Therefore, I have decided to take a form of penance, and translate the prophetess Hildegard von Bingen, at the same time, to hopefully offset the sin of translating this magical grimoire, and thus perhaps save my very soul.

For the moment, however, my current workload (besides that... place, and of course working for the old ball and chain) concerns:

Boadicea: Queen of the Iceni my epic play (900 out of 1,100 lines written so far).
Nennius History of the Britons (trans. Latham) [9th century] complete - just needs checking
Apuleius, De deo Socratis (trans. Latham) [probably written around 140 or so C.E.] complete

So I have shed loads to be getting on with, and it's going to be bloody busy at that... place this evening. (Last night was haywire - and Saturdays are always more hectic). I suppose I had better stop blogging and get back to bloody work. I will probably, instead, do some reading and write some poetry, until I have to be at that... place.

(Time passes)

In actual fact, after speaking at length with T., it is an honour and a privilege to be working for/with her. I'm really looking forward to editing these new publications.

Max.