| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: given over to pleasure, and like a brutish beast he rushes on to enjoy and
beget; he consorts with wantonness, and is not afraid or ashamed of
pursuing pleasure in violation of nature. But he whose initiation is
recent, and who has been the spectator of many glories in the other world,
is amazed when he sees any one having a godlike face or form, which is the
expression of divine beauty; and at first a shudder runs through him, and
again the old awe steals over him; then looking upon the face of his
beloved as of a god he reverences him, and if he were not afraid of being
thought a downright madman, he would sacrifice to his beloved as to the
image of a god; then while he gazes on him there is a sort of reaction, and
the shudder passes into an unusual heat and perspiration; for, as he
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: to the end of my days {*} shall I be a weakling and all
unskilled in prowess. Truly I would defend me if but
strength were mine; for deeds past sufferance have now been
wrought, and now my house is wasted utterly beyond pretence
of right. Resent it in your own hearts, and have regard to
your neighbours who dwell around, and tremble ye at the
anger of the gods, lest haply they turn upon you in wrath
at your evil deeds. {Or, lest they bring your evil deeds in
wrath on your own heads.} I pray you by Olympian Zeus and
by Themis, who looseth and gathereth the meetings of men,
let be, my friends, and leave me alone to waste in bitter
The Odyssey |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius: Would haunt with varying offspring tilth and waste;
Nor would the same fruits keep their olden trees,
But each might grow from any stock or limb
By chance and change. Indeed, and were there not
For each its procreant atoms, could things have
Each its unalterable mother old?
But, since produced from fixed seeds are all,
Each birth goes forth upon the shores of light
From its own stuff, from its own primal bodies.
And all from all cannot become, because
In each resides a secret power its own.
Of The Nature of Things |
