Okay, I've looked around, scratched my head. Are we on a ballfield?

A good woman admits her mistakes. "She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue." Proverbs 31:26 NIV. Most of what I've heard you say is like that.

Sorry, your comment got stuck as I was revising mine.

I said that the NIV and the NAS claim to translate from the best manuscripts. Statements to this effect are in their introductioins. They claim to have used the best available Hebrew and Greek texts, not the King James. I cannot verify or deny these claims.

I have read the gospels of Thomas or Mary Magdalene, and have browsed the Jerusalem Bible. It's been awhile but I found them interesting.

Yes, I tend to go with the NIV or the NAS because they claim to follow the best manuscripts and to translate without added or subtracted dogma. Still I realize many uncertainties exist as to how closely even these match the writers' originals, all of which are lost.

Yes, and thanks for the suggestion.

Then you disagree with the English translations in common use?

Yes, I've had enough flak to know I should change that. My father was a gardener, and when he said "rose" he meant "rose bush, look out for thorns."

Whoever wrote it claims to be the son of David and a king in Jeruselem. Only Solomon fits. I think it's a beautifully written book, which Szymborska apparently fails to appreciate as shown by making light of "Nothing is new under the sun." I don't think the writer meant that entirely literly. The book contains many images, and I think this one expresses his unhappy conclusion that, even after gaining all he strove for, happiness still eludes. He tries to show that following God's righteousness is the only hope for happiness, but I sense that even in that he finds less than he hoped for.

In a sense, I think he really means that nothing is new, or can be new in the future. Of course, that's easy to argue against, but I think he felt that at some level that it's true. That's worth thinking about, I think.

The book was written by a son of David who was king in Jeruselem. Whatever. And the writer really meant that nothing is new! And, oh yes, he shows no sign of despondency.

Of course!

And I do insist. It's a stretch - giving birth. Maybe that's why we're better at it.

Szymborska must have realized that Solomon, who claims to have written "The Preacher," Ecclesiastes, was distraught over meaninglessness, and that he said, "nothing is new under the sun" as an exaggeration, meaning that nothing is worthwhile. I suppose it’s okay to use the Bible to illustrate points other than the authors’ meaning; I’ve done it too. I think the point would have sounded more credible if some nod to the author’s probable meaning had been given.

If you quote a poem like this, which lacks punctuation, and string lines together, it's appropriate to insert commas at line ends. In this case, it changed the meaning somewhat.

Is that why they believe a magic skull?

I cannot believe that someone who can be as distantly vague in his imagery as you ar sometimes, could not take "rose" as the thorn of a rose stem. Are you being impish?

Sorry not to be mysterious enough for you. The whole female mystique business escapes me. We're not nearly as mysterious as men.

Grammetically, it should be, "as lilies win bees," but I liked it better this way. Thanks.

How did you feel, then, having gotten over "it", when your skirt fanned out, as everyone's does sometimes?

Line 2 has 8 beats. In the original it had the prescribed 7. "Whither" breaks the voice, I think.