My spirit is too weak - mortality  Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,  And each imagined pinnacle and steepOf godlike hardship tells me I must dieLike a sick eagle looking at the sky,  Yet 'tis a gentle luxury to weep  That I have not the cloudy winds to keepFresh for the opening of the morning's eye.Such dim-conceived glories of the brain  Bring round the heart an undescribable feud;So do these wonders a most dizzy pain,  That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rudeWasting of old time - with a billowy main -  A sun - a shadow of magnitude.On Seeing the Elgin Marbles, John Keats, 1817While this sonnet may say more about Keats's existential despair, so too does the sight of the Elgin Marbles provide an exultant respite from mortality and, as he states, 'a sun,' if only for the few moments in which he's in their presence.As the article states, the acquisition of the (unfortunately named) Elgin Marbles was was always in dispute.This many centuries out, my suggestion would be to share them between England and Greece, each with an equal share for their permanent collections. Call it even money-wise; just make a decision and abide by it. Send some pieces from each collection on the road as a joint exhibition venture. Not everyone can travel to Europe, but all should have an opportunity to view these antiquities.Intractability, in this instance, serves no one. Next a court will lock them up in a warehouse.

My spirit is too weak - mortality  Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,  And each imagined pinnacle and steepOf godlike hardship tells me I must dieLike a sick eagle looking at the sky,  Yet 'tis a gentle luxury to weep  That I have not the cloudy winds to keepFresh for the opening of the morning's eye.Such dim-conceived glories of the brain  Bring round the heart an undescribable feud;So do these wonders a most dizzy pain,  That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rudeWasting of old time - with a billowy main -  A sun - a shadow of magnitude.On Seeing the Elgin Marbles, John Keats, 1817While this sonnet may say more about Keats's existential despair, so too does the sight of the Elgin Marbles provide an exultant respite from mortality and, as he states, 'a sun,' if only for the few moments in which he's in their presence.As the article states, the acquisition of the (unfortunately named) Elgin Marbles was was always in dispute.This many centuries out, my suggestion would be to share them between England and Greece, each with an equal share for their permanent collections. Call it even money-wise; just make a decision and abide by it. Send some pieces from each collection on the road as a joint exhibition venture. Not everyone can travel to Europe, but all should have an opportunity to view these antiquities.Intractability, in this instance, serves no one. Next a court will lock them up in a warehouse.

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