{"id":9877,"date":"2017-11-02T09:17:39","date_gmt":"2017-11-01T22:17:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/?p=9877"},"modified":"2017-11-11T06:45:39","modified_gmt":"2017-11-10T19:45:39","slug":"46-great-opening-lines-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/?p=9877","title":{"rendered":"46 Great Opening Lines: 10"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself in a dark wood, where the right way was lost.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Opening line of Canto 1, &#8220;Hell&#8221;, <em>The Divine Comedy<\/em>, Dante, completed 1320, translated by Charles Eliot Norton.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Dante has lost the &#8220;right way&#8221; and hopes to find it before he grows old. But he begins his work &#8220;Midway upon the journey of our life&#8221;, that is, when he was about 43, though it was not midway for him; he died at 56.<\/p>\n<p>Many of us live long past 56, though some old people seem to be still in the dark wood that comes with weariness and a tired mind, a thought that occurred to me this week in the National Gallery of Australia where thirteen old men in electric wheelchairs are rolling around a room aimlessly, dozing, sleeping, or staring into space. They&#8217;re not real. They&#8217;re an exhibit by Sun Yuan and Peng Yu, &#8220;Old People&#8217;s Home&#8221;, part of the Hyper Real sculpture exhibition.<\/p>\n<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-9877 gallery-columns-2 gallery-size-large'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/?attachment_id=9882'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"525\" height=\"595\" src=\"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/DSC00579-903x1024.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/DSC00579-903x1024.jpg 903w, https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/DSC00579-264x300.jpg 264w, https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/DSC00579-768x871.jpg 768w, https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/DSC00579-1200x1362.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, 100vw\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/?attachment_id=9885'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"525\" height=\"598\" src=\"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/DSC00581.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large\" alt=\"\" sizes=\"auto, 100vw\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>Unlike Dante I&#8217;m not in a dark wood turning over thoughts of hell, purgatory and heaven. I&#8217;m pretty sure I&#8217;m not going to purgatory, but I&#8217;m not so certain I won&#8217;t end up in its earthly counterpart as a model for the two Beijing artists when they create the female version of Old People&#8217;s Home.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>*<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself in a dark wood, where the right way was lost. Opening line of Canto 1, &#8220;Hell&#8221;, The Divine Comedy, Dante, completed 1320, translated by Charles Eliot Norton. &nbsp; Dante has lost the &#8220;right way&#8221; and hopes to find it before he grows old. But he &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/?p=9877\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;46 Great Opening Lines: 10&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1088,579,20],"tags":[26,105,1129,1130,716,2,246,1132,7,8,417,1131],"class_list":["post-9877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-46-great-opening-lines","category-canberra","category-my-photos","tag-art","tag-canberra","tag-dante","tag-hyper-real-nga","tag-literary-translation","tag-literature","tag-opening-lines","tag-peng-yu","tag-photography","tag-photos-2","tag-sculpture","tag-sun-yuan"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9877"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9914,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9877\/revisions\/9914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}