| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare: At a faire Vestall, throned by the West,
And loos'd his loue-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts,
But I might see young Cupids fiery shaft
Quencht in the chaste beames of the watry Moone;
And the imperiall Votresse passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy free.
Yet markt I where the bolt of Cupid fell.
It fell vpon a little westerne flower;
Before, milke-white: now purple with loues wound,
And maidens call it, Loue in idlenesse.
A Midsummer Night's Dream |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Euthyphro by Plato: they can be referred.
The next definition, 'Piety is that which is loved of the gods,' is
shipwrecked on a refined distinction between the state and the act,
corresponding respectively to the adjective (philon) and the participle
(philoumenon), or rather perhaps to the participle and the verb
(philoumenon and phileitai). The act is prior to the state (as in
Aristotle the energeia precedes the dunamis); and the state of being loved
is preceded by the act of being loved. But piety or holiness is preceded
by the act of being pious, not by the act of being loved; and therefore
piety and the state of being loved are different. Through such subtleties
of dialectic Socrates is working his way into a deeper region of thought
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Memorabilia by Xenophon: it is to fit an ill-proportioned body?[12]
[12] Or, "how do you make a well-proportioned corselet fit an ill-
proportioned body? how well proportioned?"
Pist. To the same degree exactly as I make it fit. What fits is well
proportioned.
Soc. It seems you use the term "well-proportioned" not in an absolute
sense, but in reference to the wearer, just as you might describe a
shield as well proportioned to the individual it suits; and so of a
military cloak, and so of the rest of things, in your terminology? But
maybe there is another considerable advantage in this "fitting"?
Pist. Pray instruct me, Socrates, if you have got an idea.
The Memorabilia |
