| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Hiero by Xenophon: "Od." viii. 248, 249, {aiei d' emin dais te phile kitharis te
khoroi te} | {eimata t' exemoiba loetra te therma kau eunai}, "and
dear to us ever is the banquet and the harp and the dance, and
changes of raiment, and the warm bath, and love and sleep"
(Butcher and Lang).
[6] Reading as vulg. {epithumias}. Breit. cf. "Mem." III. ix. 7; Plat.
"Phaed." 116 E, "he has eaten and drunk and enjoyed the society of
his beloved" (Jowett). See "Symp." the finale; or if, after Weiske
and Cobet, {euthumias}, transl. "to the general hilarity of myself
and the whole company" (cf. "Cyrop." I. iii. 12, IV. v. 7), but
this is surely a bathos rhetorically.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Animal Farm by George Orwell: In the autumn, by a tremendous, exhausting effort--for the harvest had to
be gathered at almost the same time--the windmill was finished. The
machinery had still to be installed, and Whymper was negotiating the
purchase of it, but the structure was completed. In the teeth of every
difficulty, in spite of inexperience, of primitive implements, of bad luck
and of Snowball's treachery, the work had been finished punctually to the
very day! Tired out but proud, the animals walked round and round their
masterpiece, which appeared even more beautiful in their eyes than when it
had been built the first time. Moreover, the walls were twice as thick as
before. Nothing short of explosives would lay them low this time! And when
they thought of how they had laboured, what discouragements they had
Animal Farm |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Inaugural Address by John F. Kennedy: we offer not a pledge but a request: that both sides begin anew
the quest for peace; before the dark powers of destruction unleashed
by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction.
We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient
beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.
But neither can two great and powerful groups of nations take comfort from
our present course. . .both sides overburdened by the cost of modern weapons,
both rightly alarmed by the steady spread of the deadly atom, yet both racing
to alter that uncertain balance of terror that stays the hand of Mankind's
final war.
So let us begin anew. . .remembering on both sides that civility
|
