… What should we leave here? What should we take with us?
This is from Rome: The First Book of Foundations by Michel Serres, translated by Randolph Burks (2015, 1983):
… The vanguard of the cavalry sent from Rome empties Alba Longa of its population. The soldiers of the legions then demolish the city. No tumult, no clamor, no running, no frightful scenes, none of those disorders seen in captured cities when the gates are burst open. A sad silence, Alba suffers silent sorrow. A white silence, Alba vanishes. The Albans there are undecided, indeterminate: either motionless by their thresholds or wandering, vagabonds, through the city; the soul of the people is as white as the space, is as white as their voices. What should we leave here? What should we take with us?
Then the Roman horsemen shout that they have to leave, then the fracas of the houses collapsing rings out, then the dust rises from the outlying quarters, the edges collapsing first, then the fog spreads; it extends everywhere; it penetrates everywhere; it takes up the entire place. Of the houses, not a stone is left standing; of the rocks, only dust is left; only a cloud, Alba, a white cloud. They tore off my hands and pierced my feet; they counted all my bones. Analysis descends to the cloud, to chaos, to the limit, to whiteness. Passes from limbs to dust.
Alba returns to its first whiteness during the erasing; behind the cloud, it sees houses in ashes; it sees its laurels in dust; the diasparagmos of its king stopped at his limbs; the analysis of the city descends completely to dust; it returns to dust, to whiteness without elements. Thus atomism is born from the horror of scattered limbs; read Lucretius.
My most recent previous post from Serres’s book is here.
-Julie
Coloring 