Michel de Montaigne, Essays, 1580
Black eye of mine, come — take kindness for your craft, and in the black of my eye make your homeland, the way the pupil lives inside the dark.
Qaro koʻzum, kelu mardumligʻ emdi fan qilgʻil, Koʻzum qarosida mardum kibi vatan qilgʻil.
mardum is both "people" and "the pupil of the eye". The couplet hangs on that one word. English makes you choose, so we kept the pupil and let the crowd go.
In a strange land, they say, no one remembers you. In a strange land, they say, no one gladdens your heart. My heart has not been glad once in this exile — in exile, they say, no one is ever glad.
Yod etmas emish kishini gʻurbatda kishi, Shod etmas emish koʻngulni gʻurbatda kishi. Mening koʻnglum bu gʻurbatda shod oʻlmadi hech, Gʻurbatda shodumon boʻlmas emish kishi.
gʻurbat is exile, and also simply being a stranger far from home. Bobur says it four times in four lines. We let the repetition stand; smoothing it out would be a kind of lie.
On a dark night I fix my eyes on the sky and ask the brightest star about you. The star grows shy, bends its head, and says: I only see her in dreams.
Qorongʻu kechada koʻkka koʻz tikib, Eng yorugʻ yulduzdan seni soʻrayman. Ul yulduz uyalib, boshini bukib, Aytadir: — Men uni tushda koʻraman!
uyalib is shame and shyness at once. We tried "blushes", too warm and too English. "Grows shy" keeps the star at its distance.
Is there a cruelty of the turning sky I have not seen? Is there a grief left that this sick heart has not carried?
Charxning men koʻrmagan javru jafosi qoldimu? Xasta koʻnglim chekmagan dardu balosi qoldimu?
charx is the turning wheel of the heavens, the old image for fate. "The wheel" alone sounds like machinery in English, so we said what it does instead.
People of the world, know this: enmity is no work at all. Be friends to one another — friendship is the work.
Olam ahli, bilingizkim, ish emas dushmanligʻ, Yor oʻlung bir-biringizgakim, erur yorligʻ ish.
yor is friend, beloved and companion all at once. The line we read at the end of every first session.
Be part of our community by joining weekly meetings.
Every title here is in the public domain: free to read, free to print, free to argue with. Pick a spine and it comes off the shelf.
The whole circle drawn as one sheet: poems, books, shelves, sessions, reflections and the people behind them. Click a station to read it.
Ctrl + scroll to zoom · drag to move the sheet
Two hundred words is plenty. Disagreeing with the group is encouraged.
We are living in the 21st century. Unlike any other time in history, we have a network that allows us to do whatever we want. We are more connected than ever.
Being connected is not the same as reading together. What we do is plainer than that. We choose a book worth the time, read it properly, and meet on Sunday to argue about it: the work itself in front of us, not a summary of it, not what a lecture said it meant.
Our aim is to keep that room open to anyone who wants it. Everything we read is in the public domain, so no one is kept out by the price of a copy, and nobody needs a faculty, a degree or an invitation to sit down. Come with an argument of your own and you belong at the table.
The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.
Albert Camus
We want to do the exact same thing. We are not silent! We will preserve and protect knowledge for coming generations.
