WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.960 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.960 --> 00:00:03.360 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:00:03.360 --> 00:00:07.380 align:middle line:84% So I will end with this poem, which needs a little gloss, 00:00:07.380 --> 00:00:10.560 align:middle line:90% I think. 00:00:10.560 --> 00:00:11.960 align:middle line:90% Two things. 00:00:11.960 --> 00:00:14.560 align:middle line:84% The reference to the eunuchs and what 00:00:14.560 --> 00:00:19.960 align:middle line:84% they carry leaving the palace of the last emperor of China 00:00:19.960 --> 00:00:25.240 align:middle line:84% is from Bertolucci's great film, The Last Emperor. 00:00:25.240 --> 00:00:27.920 align:middle line:90% 00:00:27.920 --> 00:00:30.060 align:middle line:84% Have you seen that film, some of you? 00:00:30.060 --> 00:00:30.800 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:00:30.800 --> 00:00:33.520 align:middle line:90% It's a memorable scene. 00:00:33.520 --> 00:00:37.320 align:middle line:84% And I've heard that somewhere in the Vatican Museum, 00:00:37.320 --> 00:00:41.640 align:middle line:84% there's a room full of the broken 00:00:41.640 --> 00:00:47.460 align:middle line:84% off private parts of the classical male nude statues-- 00:00:47.460 --> 00:00:48.680 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:48.680 --> 00:00:51.120 align:middle line:84% --which were removed and replaced 00:00:51.120 --> 00:00:54.160 align:middle line:90% with plaster fig leaves. 00:00:54.160 --> 00:00:56.380 align:middle line:84% I can't vouch for the truth of that, 00:00:56.380 --> 00:01:00.620 align:middle line:84% but I do enjoy entertaining the idea. 00:01:00.620 --> 00:01:02.030 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:02.030 --> 00:01:04.760 align:middle line:90% 00:01:04.760 --> 00:01:09.440 align:middle line:84% When I started writing this poem, all I knew 00:01:09.440 --> 00:01:14.120 align:middle line:84% was that the statues were restless. 00:01:14.120 --> 00:01:17.840 align:middle line:90% "Be Careful What You Remember." 00:01:17.840 --> 00:01:21.840 align:middle line:84% "Can you see them now, the statues? 00:01:21.840 --> 00:01:26.080 align:middle line:84% Can you see them stirring on their pedestals, 00:01:26.080 --> 00:01:31.240 align:middle line:84% trying out their stiff arms, stepping gingerly down, 00:01:31.240 --> 00:01:36.360 align:middle line:84% breaking the glass walls that encase them? 00:01:36.360 --> 00:01:40.920 align:middle line:84% At the Vatican, forcing the door of the locked room, 00:01:40.920 --> 00:01:44.720 align:middle line:84% tearing off the plaster-of-Paris fig leaves, 00:01:44.720 --> 00:01:48.880 align:middle line:84% rummaging about in the heaps of broken off genitals, 00:01:48.880 --> 00:01:53.480 align:middle line:84% so that, when they leave God's palace of art, 00:01:53.480 --> 00:01:57.600 align:middle line:84% like the eunuchs of China's final dynasty 00:01:57.600 --> 00:02:03.240 align:middle line:84% who left the palace for the last time, carrying in small jars 00:02:03.240 --> 00:02:08.199 align:middle line:84% the parts of themselves taken by empire, 00:02:08.199 --> 00:02:15.320 align:middle line:84% so too, the statues would be whole now, heading home. 00:02:15.320 --> 00:02:18.320 align:middle line:84% They'd tear themselves from the fountains, 00:02:18.320 --> 00:02:21.660 align:middle line:84% leaving behind the public play of the waters, 00:02:21.660 --> 00:02:24.760 align:middle line:84% climb down from their candlelit niches, 00:02:24.760 --> 00:02:29.720 align:middle line:84% deserting their place in the great composition. 00:02:29.720 --> 00:02:33.480 align:middle line:84% They enter the long loneliness of roads, 00:02:33.480 --> 00:02:37.020 align:middle line:84% their exodus making a path from the cities, 00:02:37.020 --> 00:02:42.080 align:middle line:84% a gleaming white stream like refugees returning 00:02:42.080 --> 00:02:46.480 align:middle line:84% to their distant, burned villages, their memories 00:02:46.480 --> 00:02:50.040 align:middle line:90% of desolation, of marble. 00:02:50.040 --> 00:02:53.920 align:middle line:84% Day and night they travel, some leading 00:02:53.920 --> 00:02:59.600 align:middle line:84% the horses on which they've been mounted for years in piazzas, 00:02:59.600 --> 00:03:02.600 align:middle line:90% their postures heroic. 00:03:02.600 --> 00:03:07.960 align:middle line:84% All were on foot, even the gods, unaccustomed to walking, 00:03:07.960 --> 00:03:14.330 align:middle line:84% and angels from tombstones, their wings hanging useless. 00:03:14.330 --> 00:03:18.070 align:middle line:84% Scholars and poets, tall women in togas, 00:03:18.070 --> 00:03:23.010 align:middle line:84% a boxer with a broken nose, a hooded woman stumbling 00:03:23.010 --> 00:03:26.570 align:middle line:90% under her son's dead weight. 00:03:26.570 --> 00:03:31.090 align:middle line:84% An armless Venus, a headless Victory 00:03:31.090 --> 00:03:37.770 align:middle line:84% led by Justice, the blindfold torn from her eyes. 00:03:37.770 --> 00:03:40.910 align:middle line:84% Their streams converging on the road to the mountains, 00:03:40.910 --> 00:03:45.090 align:middle line:84% they climb higher and higher, like salmon 00:03:45.090 --> 00:03:49.610 align:middle line:84% returning to the ponds that had spawned them. 00:03:49.610 --> 00:03:54.890 align:middle line:84% The statues, relentless, made their way to the quarries from 00:03:54.890 --> 00:04:00.010 align:middle line:84% which they were hewn, the open vein in the heart 00:04:00.010 --> 00:04:02.261 align:middle line:90% of the mountain." 00:04:02.261 --> 00:04:04.970 align:middle line:90% [ENGINE REVVING] 00:04:04.970 --> 00:04:05.890 align:middle line:90% Perfect. 00:04:05.890 --> 00:04:09.430 align:middle line:84% "An avalanche heard from a distance, 00:04:09.430 --> 00:04:12.570 align:middle line:84% rumbling and thundering, or an earthquake. 00:04:12.570 --> 00:04:16.970 align:middle line:84% A war begun or a world ending, we could only 00:04:16.970 --> 00:04:19.970 align:middle line:90% guess what we had heard. 00:04:19.970 --> 00:04:24.490 align:middle line:84% Then word spread that the statues were missing. 00:04:24.490 --> 00:04:28.450 align:middle line:84% The fountains, the squares, the galleries stood empty. 00:04:28.450 --> 00:04:31.730 align:middle line:84% The gardens were vacant, the pedestals naked, 00:04:31.730 --> 00:04:35.330 align:middle line:90% the tombstones abstract. 00:04:35.330 --> 00:04:37.530 align:middle line:90% And it is true. 00:04:37.530 --> 00:04:41.050 align:middle line:84% Where the quarries had been, you can travel there 00:04:41.050 --> 00:04:43.370 align:middle line:90% and see for yourself. 00:04:43.370 --> 00:04:49.250 align:middle line:84% The mountain is whole again, the great rift closed, 00:04:49.250 --> 00:04:54.170 align:middle line:84% and young trees grow thick again on the slopes." 00:04:54.170 --> 00:04:54.990 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:04:54.990 --> 00:04:56.426 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:04:56.426 --> 00:04:58.770 align:middle line:90% 00:04:58.770 --> 00:04:59.670 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:04:59.670 --> 00:05:02.490 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:05:02.490 --> 00:05:03.850 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:05:03.850 --> 00:05:07.076 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:05:07.076 --> 00:05:20.000 align:middle line:90%