This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

PAGE 10 (Four panels)

Panel 1: Still in the same apartment where the interview is taking place, but Eliza is now on tiptoes taking a heavy book down from a a high shelf.

Unseen interviewer (1): Seriously, aren’t you afraid?

Translation (1): Seriamente, non ha paura?

Eliza (2): I have something to make the fear go away. Have you heard of the Roman poet Lucretius?

Translation (2): Ho qualcosa che fa sparire la paura. Ha sentito parlare del poeta romano Lucrezio?

Panel 2: Close-up around some text, the following lines from Lucretius’s De rerum natura, set in a very old typeface or (better if possible) as medieval manuscript: “respice item quam nil ad nos ante acta vetustas/temporis aeterni fuerit, quam nascimur ante./hoc igitur speculum nobis natura futuri/temporis exponit post mortem denique nostram.“

CAPTION – ELIZA NARRATING (3): He explains that we didn’t exist for an eternity before being born, and that wasn’t bad. So why should it be bad once we stop existing?

Translation (3): Spiega che non esistevamo per un’eternità prima di nascere, e non era un male. Quindi perché dovrebbe essere un male quando smettiamo di esistere?

Panel 3: Eliza, now sitting cross-legged in her big wicker chair. She has the large book she brought down in Panel 1 resting open on her lap. She’s pointing down at something on a page.

Unseen interviewer (4): And you buy that?

Comment (4): “And you buy that?” is an idiom in American English, the literal meaning of which is “Do you really believe that?”

Translation (4): E lei ci crede?

Eliza (5): It’s what David Hume told James Boswell as Hume was wasting away, about to die. But Hume was calm and even told jokes.

Translation (5): È quello che David Hume disse a James Boswell mentre Hume stava svanendo, quand’era vicino alla morte. Ma Hume era calmo e raccontava anche barzellette.

Panel 4: Eliza looking down at the page of the book open on her lap, reading.

Eliza (6): From Boswell’s account: “I asked him if the thought of annihilation never gave him any uneasiness. He said not the least; no more than the thought that he had not been, as Lucretius observes.”

Comment (6): Eliza is quoting from a real literary work, James Bosewell’s Life of Johnson. If there is a public domain version of the Life in your target language, you are encouraged to substitute its text for your own translation.

Translation (6): Dal resoconto di Boswell: “Gli chiesi se il pensiero dell’annientamento non gli dava alcun ansia, mi rispose né più né meno più del pensiero di non essere mai esistito, come osserva Lucrezio.

  Esca (Italiano/Versione a pagina lunga)
Esca (Italiano/Versione con slider)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

PAGE 9 (Three panels)

Panel 1: Eliza in her wicker chair, being interviewed. She looks like she’s listening intently to to the interviewer’s question.

Unseen interviewer (1): I suppose I can understand your interest in…unusual experiences, but still, this would be your last such experience.

Translation (1): Suppongo di poter capire il suo interesse in … esperienze insolite, ma comunque, questa sarebbe stata la sua ultima esperienza del genere.

Eliza (2): That’s right.

Translation (2): Questo è vero.

Panel 2: Eliza stretched out on her wicker chair, one leg extended long, her hand settled between her legs.

Eliza (3): But perhaps instead of a long string of experiences, a string that’s just going to diminish in quality as I get older and older, I might want to have one experience that surpasses them all.

Translation (3): Ma forse invece di una lunga serie di esperienze, una sequenza che diminuirà di qualità man mano che invecchio, potrei desiderare di avere un’esperienza che le superi tutte.

Panel 3: Close-up on Eliza’s face. Her eyes are closed.

Eliza (4): It sort of gets me hot just thinking about it.

Comment (4): “Gets me hot” is a colloquial expression meaning “causing me to be sexually aroused.”

Translation (4); In qualche modo mi eccito solo a pensarci.

  Esca (Italiano/Versione a pagina lunga)
Esca (Italiano/Versione con slider)