"It is as important to talk about marriages as to talk about the national election."

This quotation from Phyllis Rose, referred to in one of the eleven articles of volume six of the journal Spring, devoted to marriage, resonates through the entire issue in an astonishing variety of ways.

From publisher James Hillman's own reflections on "Marriage, Intimacy, Freedom" to Ginette Paris' "If You Invite the Gods Into Your Marriage" to C.L. Sebrell's "Marry the Gardener!" the importance of marriage to the individual soul, the immediate community and society as a whole is exhaustively but entertainingly discussed.

Perhaps the best, and certainly the most delightful, piece in this collection is Sebrell's, which not only re-visions our understanding of the Greek god Priapos, bringing our attention back to the Greek view of him as a careful and talented lover and not just as a glorified satyr, but also uses this examination of Priapos, also the god of gardens, to drive home the point that the best and happiest marriages occur when two people who are already whole come together, seeking in marriage not salvation or completeness, but a life of shared tenderness and esthetic and erotic pleasure.

Helen Henley's "What Can We Ask of Marriage?" reiterates this point: "A conscious relationship must always presuppose two individuals able to make a committment to a meaningful life together," and "Its achievement is both an art and a discipline."

Full disclosure time: I, your humble reviewer, have never been married. But I arose from a marriage, one whose partners are still joined, and I live in a society that still in some sense values marriage, still sees it as a subject worth examining in film and song and dry political debate. Much of these examinations have proven pointless, dull, fruitless, seeking only to point a finger of blame for what is wrong about marriage.

In 1996, the editors of Spring chose to point out what is still right, still possible, and also to ask why marriage still matters, still obsesses us, still happens in the 20th century and beyond.

And in the process, they have made even unmarried free agents like myself take a look at this most basic of institutions and say to it "Yes, it is important to talk about."

I agree wholeheartedly with iamblichos' evaluation of this book. This translation is so confounding that it has taken me years to even broach another text by Ficino. Only the most intrepid Ficino fans could hope to finish this book.

It is with a very heavy heart that I report that Charles Boer's translation of Marsilio Ficino's _Three Books of Life_ (De vita libri tres) is wretched indeed.

Mr. Boer, famous for his 'modern' translations, has buggered poor Ficino's beautiful writing to the point where it is often nigh impossible to decipher the original meaning. He made no effort to learn or utilize even the basic terminology of astrology, rendering Ficino's clear astrological instruction into an incomprehensible muddle. Houses are referred to as 'places', degrees of the zodiac are referred to as 'grades', trines and sextiles become 'third places' and 'sixth places' respectively, and planets have 'coitus' with one another rather than simply being conjunct... O lucky planets! Their supposedly sexual union reflects in heaven what has happened on earth between Mr. Boer and this poor text.

The lack of astrological comprehension is bad enough, but Mr. Boer also seems strangely ignorant of the Neoplatonist philosophy that informs all of Ficino's writings. Although interspersed with practical instructions on how to bring one's life and body into a more healthy alignment with the heavenly powers, this text contains long sections of philosophical theory to show the theoretical underpinnings of the practical work. These theoretical sections are completely incomprehensible; where is Thomas Taylor when we need him? He provided better explanatory notes in the early 1800's than Mr. Boer does in the latter part of the 20th century.

All in all, this work is not for the weak of will; only the stalwart will want to brave the necessary interpretation to get information from this text. To those who are willing to translate the translation, however, this text is a jewel without price - let us hope that it will find a more deserving setting.

I've read two translations of Ovid's Metamorphoses and enjoyed them so much I wanted to hear them read out loud. The first shock was just how abridged this reading was, it fits on only one cassette. But the second shock is how beyond painful it was to listen to the narration which was less about Ovid's (or Boer's) words, and more about the overacting of the reader. It's the worst thing I've ever listened to, and if this stops even one person from buying the tape, I'll rest easier. Waste of money. Waste of beautiful poetry.

Ovid's Metamorphoses is wonderful, essential reading and gets 5 stars easily.. I like Mandelbaum's translation best.. However here I am reviewing the audio tape reading of the Boer translation with Noah Pikes as narrator. The quality of the recording is horrible, but even worse is the "performance" of the narrator. Because of the extreme histrionics (to put it mildly), poor diction, it is impossible to understand 90% of the words. and the reading is stilted and sounds like Tonto (yes, of the Lone Ranger) reading. It is only a few selections from the Metamorphoses, poorly choosen at that.. easily the worst puchase I've made at Amazon (of over 1500 items so far). 1 Star is too high a rating.. I threw in it the trash..