Forgetting

Use in the book

The alternative formulations making memory and oblivion parents of the muses connect knowledge with a sieve. Forgetting removes as well as loses; it participates in what is retained. The remark attributed to Hesiod develops a related paradox: daughters of memory make one forget evils because remembering good things displaces them. Joubert’s unnamed “other version” is not recoverable from that sentence alone. The account of things seen at night assigns seeing and forgetting separate purposes, the first disposing the soul and its inclinations, the second allowing the lot to be fulfilled blindly. That theological explanation should remain a particular notebook assertion.

Places to read

1. I, p. 106, entry 9, ¶2Oblivion is paired with memory and figured as a sieve.
2. II, p. 795, entry 2, ¶1Remembering good things can make evils forgotten.
3. II, p. 581, entry 5, ¶1Seeing and forgetting receive different purposes in the account of nocturnal visions.

Translation in this edition

“Riddle” in the English translation means a coarse sieve, not an enigma. “Or” preserves alternative formulations rather than successive settled propositions. The Latin Noctu visa is translated “Things seen at night”; no specific dream content is supplied.