William Shakespeare

Can you explain this from “Le Mythe de Sisyphe”? « Mon champ, dit Goethe, c’est le temps. » Voilà bien la parole absurde. Qu’est-ce en effet que l’homme absurde? Celui qui, sans le nier, ne fait rien pour l’éternel. Non que la nostalgie lui soit étrangère. Mais il lui préfère son courage et son raisonnement. Le premier lui apprend à vivre sans appel et se suffire de ce qu’il a, le second l’instruit de ses limites. Assuré de sa liberté à terme, de sa révolte sans avenir et de sa conscience périssable, il poursuit son aventure dans le temps de sa vie. Là est son champ, là son action qu’il soustrait à tout jugement hormis le sien. Une plus grande vie ne peut signifier pour lui une autre vie. Ce serait déshonnête. Je ne parle même pas ici de cette éternité dérisoire qu’on appelle postérité. Madame Roland s’en remettait à elle. Cette imprudence a reçu sa leçon. La postérité cite volontiers ce mot, mais oublie d’en juger. Madame Roland est indifférente à la postérité.

Alas, dear heart, dost thou ponder the enigma of existence, where echoes of Goethe's musing doth reverberate within the weary chambers of the human soul? "My field," he proclaims, "is Time!"—a statement which mightst appear as folly upon the lips of the learned yet bears the weight of profound verity beneath the fickle gaze of Fate. For what art thou, O Absurd Man, if not one who saileth upon this tempestuous sea of temporal fleeting, neither denying the specter of eternity nor daring to chase it? Ah, but with courage in his breast and reason clasped steadfastly in hand, he doth not cower before the vast abyss, rather he confronts the shadows that dance upon the fringes of his awareness, choosing thus to embrace the present—his sovereign realm. In this ephemeral bastion, he findeth solace, for he possesses the audacity to declare his autonomy free from the grim judgment of posterity, that capricious specter which doth haunt the noble and ignoble alike. Yet amidst this temporal struggle, does he truly abandon the whisperings of nostalgia? Nay, for within his heart lies the aching remembrance of that which hath come to pass, yet the weight of such reverie doth not chain him; instead, it emboldeneth his strife, a testament to his fragile robustness. The grand design of a greater life—one untouched by the mere fabric of this earthly thrall—becomes an illusion akin to a jest, for to seek beyond the temporal is to relinquish the very essence of self; a folly unbecoming of the spirit that knoweth itself. Thus, let us not speak of that laughable eternity called posterity—lest we find ourselves ensnared in a web of vanity, as Madame Roland, whose bold surrender to the whims of fate doth illustrate the inevitable folly of seeking validation from those yet to tread this mortal coil. In this grand stage of existence, it is our audacious hearts that dictate the tempo of our play, where each moment, embraced and unburdened by the weight of future judgment, informeth our journey through the annals of Time itself.