44 4ever Chekhov

Ms. Lori Lamothe, in her wonderful story, Eat Your Cake: Think Like Chekhov. Four unconventional strategies for success, quotes, among fascinating facts about the great author and his era, an instance of his To Be or Not to Be, though his may seem less important.

Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress. When I get fed up with one, I spend the night with the other. Though it is irregular, it is less boring this way, and besides, neither of them loses anything through my infidelity. Chekhov

I prefer Chekhov’s words.

I am sorry, dear, Shakespeare, but Chekhov’s words touched my heart as well. You remain the greatest of them all, dear Bard, but some wordings raise to your levels, but none will ever surpass them. Thus, my literary liege, I will always love you, but once in a while, someone out of the blue will kiss you on the forehead and wish you, Farewell, my Bard! I bid you, adieu! Your words are already among the stars. All we can wish for is to borrow your sword.

I would also have asked the Bard for a sonnet, the one the Bard wrote on the deathbed, titled To Four Rats and a Cat. I think that its telling, involving physics and Shakespeare, is somewhere on Vocal, but no one, as far as I know, has ever read the sonnet. Some think that it never existed. I tend to agree with this last solitude. It is another myth. We do not have enough of them already, like the one that asserts beyond any doubt that the Moon is at all necessary for the survival of life. The Moon is going to kill me soon. I am sorry, dear reader, but my ex muse is on the loose. She is usually on the Moon. I can type things all of a sudden that may not make sense. But for some reason, which I have not figured out yet, all of a sudden, they make the most sense. But you have to know the whole story from the beginning, which spans over 50 pieces now. Thus, you will have to assume things that you suddenly read since you have not read them before. I am really sorry, but … what the fuck? M?

Back to dear, Chekhov. Medicine could never have been my wife even if my life depended on it. No! Literature would have been my wife and I would not need a mistress. Medicine would have been just another one of the human fields and far from ever reaching the grandeur of physics and perhaps even literature. And thus, dear Chekhov, while your words remain immortal, I prefer those of John Lennon and many learned others.

I guess that I just wanted to demonstrate that the meaning of words can change, for the better, I suppose, since we can never be sure of anything, except for some plausible truths coming from the sciences.

Lest we forget, Chekhov’s wife, medicine, could not save him from the disease of the day, but I am sure that his mistress, literature, provided him with as much solace as he could muster until his untimely death.

I bid you all, a happy life, and may the word always sound good. Dedicated as always to my muse as well as Anthi Psomiadou.

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Shakespeare Versus Love: A Sonnet of Choice

Shall I compare thee, dear Bard, to my love?

Thou art more worldly, filling my blue heart

With awe and love of your art, to behove

My mind to ascend once more to her chart.

She is my muse, dear Bard, she is my life.

I dream about her awake and at night.

She sends me your love in French like a wife

Who doth want me to see the red-shift light.

Her words fill me with blue hues of your art

Unfettered by any signals of gloom.

Her moonlight arrival doth bring, apart

From her love, visions of her woven womb.

I hereby spell my eternal passion

For you, my Bard, and all she doth fashion.