I am not here to discuss the details, for they are of no moment. (Should you encounter a person who feels otherwise, give them a wide berth.) The madness is the point. Mind you, most of the country's inhabitants have not taken leave of their senses. But they know full well where the madness resides.
For me, the solution is simple. Tonight, I sought out some beloved lines, sat down and read them, and all was well with the World.
Constant Penelope sends to thee, careless Ulysses.
Write not again, but come, sweet mate, thyself to revive me.
Troy we do much envy, we desolate lost ladies of Greece;
Not Priamus, nor yet all Troy, can us recompense make.
Oh, that he had, when he first took shipping to Lacedaemon,
That adulter I mean, had been o'erwhelmed with waters:
Then had I not lain now all alone, thus quivering for cold,
Nor used this complaint, nor have thought the day to be so long.
Anonymous, in William Byrd, Psalms, Sonnets, and Songs of Sadness and Piety (1588), in E. H. Fellowes (editor), English Madrigal Verse 1588-1632 (Oxford University Press 1920). The eight lines are untitled. They are a translation of the opening lines of the First Epistle of Ovid's Heroides. E. H. Fellowes (editor), English Madrigal Verse 1588-1632, page 254.
As I fall asleep tonight I will be thinking of constant Penelope and her lovely complaint, and of nothing else.
Alexander Sillars Burns (1911-1987), "Afternoon, Wester Ross"
