| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare: Yet in the midst of all her pure protestings,
Her faith, her oaths, her tears, and all were jestings.
She burn'd with love, as straw with fire flameth;
She burn'd out love, as soon as straw outburneth;
She framed the love, and yet she foil'd the framing;
She bade love last, and yet she fell a-turning.
Was this a lover, or a lecher whether?
Bad in the best, though excellent in neither.
VIII.
If music and sweet poetry agree,
As they must needs, the sister and the brother,
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: compared to the rainbow in respect not of form but of colour, and not to
the undergirders of a trireme, but to the straight rope running from prow
to stern in which the undergirders meet.
The orrery or picture of the heavens given in the Republic differs in its
mode of representation from the circles of the same and of the other in the
Timaeus. In both the fixed stars are distinguished from the planets, and
they move in orbits without them, although in an opposite direction: in
the Republic as in the Timaeus they are all moving round the axis of the
world. But we are not certain that in the former they are moving round the
earth. No distinct mention is made in the Republic of the circles of the
same and other; although both in the Timaeus and in the Republic the motion
The Republic |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare: How comes it then, vile Opportunity,
Being so bad, such numbers seek for thee?
'When wilt thou be the humble suppliant's friend,
And bring him where his suit may be obtain'd?
When wilt thou sort an hour great strifes to end?
Or free that soul which wretchedness hath chain'd?
Give physic to the sick, ease to the pain'd?
The poor, lame, blind, halt, creep, cry out for thee;
But they ne'er meet with Opportunity.
'The patient dies while the physician sleeps;
The orphan pines while the oppressor feeds;
|
