A Brief History of Time

English theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen William Hawking, born in Oxford on January 8, 1942 has died in Cambridge on March 14, 2018 aged 76. As Michael McGowan writes in The Guardian obituary, “[Hawking] combined a soaring intellect and a mischievous sense of humour that made him an icon of both academia and popular culture”. In 1963 Hawking was diagnosed with a rare early-onset slow-progressing form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as motor neurone disease or Lou Gehrig’s disease, that gradually paralysed him over half a century. Throughout his life, he was still able to communicate using a single cheek muscle attached to a speech-generating device.

Stephen William Hawking in a scene from Errol Morris’s documentary A Brief History of Time (1992). Photo: Triton/Kobal/Rex/Shutterstock.

It would not be much of a universe if it wasn’t home to the people you love. Stephen William Hawking

Hamletic dilemma

Word The word bites like a fish. Shall I throw it back free Arrowing to that sea Where thoughts lash tail and fin? Or shall I put it in To rhyme upon a dish? Stephen Spender

劉勃麟 (Liú Bólín)’s Mona Lisa (2016) at Klein Sun Gallery in New York City, United States. Photo © 劉勃麟 (Liú Bólín)/Courtesy of Klein Sun Gallery.

Lost & Found

“Cooperate with Rero” (2015) © 劉勃麟 (Liú Bólín)

Elegy for Margaret I Darling of our hearts, drowning In the thick night of ultimate sea Which (indeed) surrounds us all, but where we Are crammed islands of flesh, wide With a few harvesting years, disowning The bitter black severing tide; Here in this room you are outside this room, Here in this body your eyes drift away, While the invisible vultures feed on Your life, and those who read the doom Of the ill-boding omens say Name of a disease which, like a villain, Seizes on the pastures of your flesh, Then gives you back some acres, soon again To set you on that rack of pain Where the skeleton cuts through you like a knife, And the weak eyes flinch with their hoping light Which, where we wait, blinds our still hoping sight. Until hope signs us to despair––what lives Seems what most kills––what holds back fate Seems itself fated––and the eyes that smile Mirror the mocking illness that contrives Moving away some miles To ricochet at one appointed date. Least of our world, yet you are most this world Today, when those who are well are those who hide In dreams painted by unfulfilled desire From hatred triumphing outside: And where the brave, who live and love, are hurled Through waters of a food shot through with fire; Where sailors’ eyes rolling on floors of seas Hold in their luminous darkening irises The memory of some lost still dancing girl, The possible attainable happy peace Of statued Europe with its pastures fertile, Dying, like a girl, of a doomed, hidden disease. So, to be honest, I must wear your death Next to my heart, where others wear their love. Indeed it is my love, my link with life My word of life being knowledge of such death. My dying word because of you can live, Crowned with your death, this life upon my breath. Stephen Spender

The Unforeseeable

劉勃麟 (Liú Bólín)
Photo © Annie Leibovitz

What I expected What I expected, was Thunder, fighting, Long struggles with men And climbing. After continual straining I should grow strong: Then the rocks would shake, And I rest long. What I had not foreseen Was the gradual day Weakening the will Leaking the brightness away, The lack of good to touch, The fading of body and soul ––Smoke before wind, Corrupt, unsubstantial. The wearing of Time, And the watching of cripples pass With limbs shaped like questions In their odd twist, The pulverous grief Melting the bones with pity, The sick falling from earth–– These, I could not foresee. Expecting always Some brightness to hold in trust, Some final innocence Exempt from dust, That, hanging solid, Would dangle through all, Like the created poem, Or faceted crystal. Stephen Spender

The Importance of Not Being Arcovazzi

An ‘I’ can never be a great man. This known great one has weakness To friends is most remarkable for weakness His ill-temper at meals, his dislike of being contradicted, His only real pleasure fishing in ponds, His only real desire – forgetting. To advance from friends to the composite self Central ‘I’ is surrounded by ‘I eating’, ‘I loving’, ‘I angry’, ‘I excreting’, And the ‘great I’ planted in him Has nothing to do with all these, It can never claim its true place Resting in the forehead, and secure in his gaze. The ‘great I’ is an unfortunate intruder Quarrelling with ‘I tiring’ and ‘I sleeping’ And all those other ‘I’s who long for ‘We dying’. Stephen Spender

A giant chrome brushed aluminium skeleton of a T-Rex made by French sculptor and painter Philippe Pasqua is put on display in Paris, France. Photo: AFP/Getty Images.

Double Standards

Who steals my purse steals trash — ’tis something-nothing, ’Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands — But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him And makes me poor indeed. Chi mi ruba la borsa ruba ciarpame; è qualcosa, è nulla; era mia, è sua, ed è stata schiava di mille altri. Ma chi mi toglie il mio buon nome ruba qualcosa che non lo arricchisce, e rende me più povero. 谁偷了我的钱包拿走的是陈旧之物， 所失去的不值一提。 那些钱本来是我的，今天成了你的，以前曾被无数人占用过。 盗用我的名声，不会为你带来财富，但却毁我于衰落。 William Shakespeare, Othello, act 3, scene 3

Chinese translation by 莫东科 (Mò Dōngkē)