| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: Is prostitution less heartrending in Naples than in Paris?
What is the amount of truth that springs from your laws, and what
amount of justice springs from your tribunals? Do you chance to be
so fortunate as to be ignorant of the meaning of those gloomy words:
public prosecution, legal infamy, prison, the scaffold, the executioner,
the death penalty? Italians, with you as with us, Beccaria is dead
and Farinace is alive. And then, let us scrutinize your state reasons.
Have you a government which comprehends the identity of morality
and politics? You have reached the point where you grant amnesty
to heroes! Something very similar has been done in France.
Stay, let us pass miseries in review, let each one contribute
Les Miserables |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: "How strange!"
"Akinosuke must have been dreaming," one of them exclaimed, with a laugh.
"What did you see, Akinosuke, that was strange?"
Then Akinosuke told his dream,-- that dream of three-and-twenty years'
sojourn in the realm of Tokoyo, in the island of Raishu;-- and they were
astonished, because he had really slept for no more than a few minutes.
One goshi said:--
"Indeed, you saw strange things. We also saw something strange while you
were napping. A little yellow butterfly was fluttering over your face for a
moment or two; and we watched it. Then it alighted on the ground beside
you, close to the tree; and almost as soon as it alighted there, a big, big
Kwaidan |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Oedipus Trilogy by Sophocles: I care not to prolong the span of life,
Thus ill-reputed; for the calumny
Hits not a single blot, but blasts my name,
If by the general voice I am denounced
False to the State and false by you my friends.
CHORUS
This taunt, it well may be, was blurted out
In petulance, not spoken advisedly.
CREON
Did any dare pretend that it was I
Prompted the seer to utter a forged charge?
Oedipus Trilogy |
