Tomorrow, once the X I I I shall be consummated, at the hospital room I’ll be reciting the Bacchae—in the extraordinary translation of Carles Riba. Not because I can’t recite Euripides’ original Greek, but because there hasn’t been any classical translator in the world like Carles Riba. And perchance, he did translate into my mother tongue—the most motherly of all the 11 languages I speak: Catalan.

Tofa’t, tofa’t de verd artíjol

amb les seves boniques baies,

vela’t bàquicament