| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare: But heerein meane I to enrich my paine,
To haue his sight thither, and backe againe.
Enter.
Enter Quince the Carpenter, Snug the Ioyner, Bottome the Weauer,
Flute
the bellowes-mender, Snout the Tinker, and Starueling the Taylor.
Quin. Is all our company heere?
Bot. You were best to call them generally, man by
man according to the scrip
Qui. Here is the scrowle of euery mans name, which
is thought fit through all Athens, to play in our Enterlude
A Midsummer Night's Dream |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Parmenides by Plato: things, each one is great in virtue of a portion of greatness less than
absolute greatness--is that conceivable?
No.
Or will each equal thing, if possessing some small portion of equality less
than absolute equality, be equal to some other thing by virtue of that
portion only?
Impossible.
Or suppose one of us to have a portion of smallness; this is but a part of
the small, and therefore the absolutely small is greater; if the absolutely
small be greater, that to which the part of the small is added will be
smaller and not greater than before.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: might be a mark of wealth, was hardly a proof of manly virtue. And
surely in the following opinion we may discern plainly the generosity
of him who entertained it. To win victories over private persons in a
chariot race does not add one tittle to a man's renown. He, rather,
who holds his city dear beyond all things else, who has himself sunk
deep into the heart of her affections, who has obtained to himself all
over the world a host of friends and those the noblest, who can outdo
his country and comrades alike in the race of kindliness, and his
antagonists in vengeance--such a man may, in a true sense, be said to
bear away the palm of victory in conquests noble and magnificent;
living and in death to him belongs transcendent fame.
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