Four Scores and Seven Years

Post scriptum 30 ottobre 2021: son riemerse (nella mia testa, almeno) le vignette di Gary Larson. Sono incappato in quella dedicata al Gettysburg address, che non conoscevo, e l'ho aggiunta. L'umanità si divide in due categrie, riguardo a Larson, e dispiace per gli altri.

Mi attende una giornata complicata, con diverse riunioni non del tutto ancora preparate. E con cosa mi sveglio in testa? Il Gettysburg Address di Lincoln - 19 novembre del 1863, nel bel mezzo della guerra civile.

Quando non ho tempo, il mio cervello (che vive tutta una sua vita adolescenziale e molto diversa dalla mia, da adulto professionista) è bravissimo a farmi perder tempo.

Apprendo che del Gettysburg address esistono più versioni, tra loro leggermente diverse. E' il testo che qualunque "negro" vorrebbe aver scritto: brevissimo e prospettico, dall'occasione contingente comunica il significato dell'oggi, che ha le radici nella propria storia, e le necessità del domani. E' semplicemente perfetto.

Un giorno mi rimetterò a fare il "negro" e anch'io imparerò a scrivere così bene.

Gettysburg Address (*)

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle field of that war. We come to dedicate a portion of it, as a final resting place for those who died here, that the nation might live. This we may, in all propriety do.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate we can not consecrate we can not hallow, this ground The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have hallowed it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here; while it can never forget what they did here.

It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863

(*) Nicolay Copy

"Named for John G. Nicolay, President Lincoln's personal secretary, this is considered the "first draft" of the speech, begun in Washington on White house stationery. The second page is writen on different paper stock, indicating it was finished in Gettysburg before the cemetery dedication began. Lincoln gave this draft to Nicolay, who went to Gettysburg with Lincoln and witnessed the speech. The Library of Congress owns this manuscript."