Rudyard Kiplings Gedicht „If“ als Backpiece-Tattoo

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds‘ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

••• Anders als der Herr, der sich dieses Kipling-Gedicht auf den Rücken tätowieren ließ, halte ich diese Verse nicht für den Kulminationspunkt unsterblicher Dichtung. Aber: Was mich beeindruckt, ist das Commitment, das jemand zeigt, der sich ein solches Manifest auf ewig in die Haut ritzen lässt.

So wird aus dem Akt und dem Gedicht zusammengenommen eine Geschichte…

Dem Link zum Modblog sollte nur folgen, wer die Nerven dafür hat. Viele Ideen der Body Modification gehen weit über das hinaus, was man für gewöhnlich mit dem eigenen Körper anzustellen bereit ist. Ich habe gewarnt.

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master,
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‚em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: „Hold on!“

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds‘ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

Tags: Rudyard Kipling • Tattoo • Lyrik

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