Hi! Random question, but where does your tag "what is saved from death's dullness" from? Is it a quotation?
yes! it's from W.S. Merwin's Learning a Dead Language:
There is nothing for you to say. You must Learn first to listen. Because it is dead It will not come to you of itself, nor would you Of yourself master it. You must therefore Learn to be still when it is imparted, And, though you may not yet understand, to remember.
What you remember is saved. To understand The least thing fully you would have to perceive The whole grammar in all its accidence And all its system, in the perfect singleness Of intention it has because it is dead. You can only learn a part at a time.
What you are given to remember Has been saved from death’s dullness by Remembering. The unique intention Of a language whose speech has died is order Incomplete only where someone has forgotten. You will find that that order helps you to remember.
What you come to remember becomes yourself. Learning will be to cultivate the awareness Of that governing order, now pure of the passions It composed; till, seeking it in itself, You may find at last the passion that composed it, Hear it both in its speech and in yourself.
What you remember saves you. To remember Is not to rehearse, but to hear what never Has fallen silent. So your learning is, From the dead, order, and what sense of yourself Is memorable, what passion may be heard When there is nothing for you to say.
