'Things That Might Have Been and Were Not'

An old friend has grown uncharacteristically introspective and is finding much to regret. It’s a function of age. A widower in retirement from teaching high school, he seems no longer the buoyant social creature I’ve always known. In fact, I envied his gregariousness when we were young. Still funny, still curious, well-read and attentive to the world, he looks back at missed opportunities, doubts, things he should have done or not done. We all do that, at least the non-sociopaths among us, but I fear my friend is growing obsessive. Such self-scourging worries me. I’m no psychiatrist but I do respect depression, especially when it’s not merely an insidious mutation of self-pity. 

Jorge Luis Borges wrote a poem when he was a little older than we are -- “Things That Might Have Been” (trans. Alastair Reid, The History of the Night, 1977). Here we find the alternate-history musings of a man who was among the great writers of the last century:

 

“I think of the things that might have been and were not.

The treatise on Saxon mythology that Bede did not write.

The unimaginable work that Dante glimpsed fleetingly

when the last verse of the Commedia was corrected.

History without the afternoon of the Cross and the afternoon of the hemlock.

History without the face of Helen.

Man without the eyes which have shown the moon to us.

In the three labored days of Gettysburg, the victory of the South.

The love we do not share.

The vast empire which the Vikings did not wish to found.

The world without the wheel or without the rose.

The judgment of John Donne on Shakespeare.

The other horn of the unicorn.

The fabled bird of Ireland, in two places at once.

The son I did not have.”

 

The tone is objective, almost clinical, a catalog. All of these events are historical, not personal, until the eighth item on his list: “The love we do not share.” Is he speaking as a generic human being or as Borges? It’s left ambiguous, at least in translation. Only in the final line does the first-person singular assert itself: “The son I did not have.” We know Borges had no children. Hoyt Rogers also translated Borges’ poem, first in the March 1999 issue of The New Criterion, then in Selected Poems (ed. Alexandr Coleman, 1999). Some of the alternate word choices are interesting:

 

“I think about things that might have been and never were.

The treatise on Saxon myths that Bede omitted to write.

The inconceivable work that Dante may have glimpsed

As soon as he corrected the Comedy’s last verse.

History without two afternoons: that of the hemlock, that of the Cross.

History without Helen’s face.

Man without the eyes that have granted us the moon.

Over three Gettysburg days, the victory of the South.

The love we never shared.

The vast empire the Vikings declined to found.

The globe without the wheel, or without the rose.

John Donne’s judgment of Shakespeare.

The Unicorn’s other horn.

The fabled Irish bird which alights in two places at once.

The child I never had.”

 

“Child” instead of “son.” Like Borges, my friend has no children.