14 march 2009

money doesn't talk, it swears

What do I remember?

There's a Ray Bradbury short story somewhere, where the protagonist speaks from a spacecraft to his wife back on Earth, and a cosmic ray burst wipes out the transmission, all apart from the word " . . . love . . . " .
Larkin was making a similar point with his Arundel Tomb.

Last October among the ruins of Ephesus, a mixture of Greek and Roman buildings, artefacts and stones, there was a worn inscription from the city's later period, in Latin. The only legible lettering:  " . . . pecuniam . . ."

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