Tempus fugit

For John Thornton

Fellow fugitive
Forgive yourself
And me thereby
Thus we can live
Whatever’s left
Of time for us,
Each day a gift
We take on trust

Menashe, Samuel (2009). "Tempus fugit". Poetry. 194 (5): 404. JSTOR 25706659. – via JSTOR (subscription required)

A 'garden path sentence' is a construction which traps the reader/hearer in a processing fault from which it is hard or even impossible to recover.

Consider the small example of the utterance 'Can you pass the salt?' immediately construed by the vast majority of native speakers as a request for performance of a specific action rather than as a question about the hearer's physical abilities; but this is so because in the very hearing of the utterance we assume the mealtime setting populated by agents concerned with eating and drinking... If one varies the setting and reconceives it as a conversation between a doctor and a patient recovering from surgery, the utterance 'Can you pass the salt' could indeed be heard as a question about the hearer's physical ability... Independently of some such already assumed context (and there could be many more than two), the utterance wouldn't have any meaning at all and wouldn't be an utterance, but merely a succession of noises or marks... In the example of 'Can you pass the salt?' it is always possible that someone at a dinner table may hear the question as one about his abilities, or that a patient may hear his doctor asking him to pass the salt (perhaps as a preliminary to an experiment).

Jahn, Manfred (2004). "Foundational Issues in Teaching Cognitive Narratology". European Journal of English Studies. 8 (1): 105–127. doi:10.1080/13825570408559490. – via Taylor & Francis (subscription required)

Carpe diem

THE CARPE DIEM ("pluck the day") motif, whose onomastic origins can be traced to Horace, permeates not only classical Greek and Latin poetry but also lyric poetry from fifteenth-century Italy to sixteenth-century Spain to seventeenth-century England.1 Few students of English literature are unfamiliar with Robert Herrick's "Corinna's Going a Maying,"John Donne's "The Anagram,"William Shakespeare's Sonnets 3 and 4, or Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress." Similarly, in the Spanish tradition, Garcilaso de laVega's "En tanto que de rosa y azucena," Luis de Gongora's "Mientras por competir con tu cabello," Lupercio Leonardo de Argensola's "Ojala suyo asi lamar pudiera," and Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas's "A una mujer afeitada" form part of a large corpus of carpe diem poems. But it is perhaps in early modern France in general, and in the Pleiade in particular, that the carpe diem motif reaches its apogee. As Paul Laumonier humorously phrases it, "le vieux theme est dans l'air, et l'air en est sature"'2 (the old theme is in the air, and the air is saturated with it). Pierre de Ronsard figures prominently in this tradition, which he both embraces and transforms.

Yandell, Cathy (1997). "Carpe diem Revisited: Ronsard's Temporal Ploys". Sixteenth Century Journal. 28 (4): 1281–1298. doi:10.2307/2543578. JSTOR 2543578. – via JSTOR (subscription required)

Il trionfo del tempo e della verità

Lascia la spina

Lascia la spina
cogli la rosa
tu vai cercando
il tuo dolor


Canuta brina
per mano ascosa
giungerà quando
non crede il cor

Bayerische StaatsBibliothek (2008-02-15). "Il trionfo del tempo e della verità". Münchener Digitalsierungszentrum - Digitale Sammlungen: 76–77. urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00016762-8.

The Triumph of Time and Truth

Time is supreme,
Time is a mighty pow’r!
whom wisest mortals
will adore.

Morell, Thomas. "The Triumph of Time and Truth" (PDF). Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

Rinaldo

Lascia ch'io pianga

Lascia ch'io pianga
mia cruda sorte,
e che sospiri
la libertà.


Il duolo infranga
queste ritorte,
de' miei martiri
sol per pietà.

Bayerische StaatsBibliothek (2008-01-29). "Rinaldo". Münchener Digitalsierungszentrum - Digitale Sammlungen: 61. urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00016898-7.