| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: rest must be taught you by practice; for time will not allow me to say
more of this kind of fishing with live baits.
And for your DEAD-BAIT for a Pike: for that you may be taught by one
day's going a-fishing with me, or any other body that fishes for him; for
the baiting your hook with a dead gudgeon or a roach, and moving it up
and down the water, is too easy a thing to take up any time to direct you
to do it. And yet, because I cut you short in that, I will commute for it
by telling you that that was told me for a secret: it is this: Dissolve gum
of ivy in oil of spike, and therewith anoint your dead bait for a Pike;
and then cast it into a likely place; and when it has lain a short time at
the bottom, draw it towards the top of the water, and so up the stream;
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's."
v. 98. O German Albert!] The Emperor Albert I. succeeded
Adolphus in 1298, and was murdered in 1308. See Par Canto XIX
114 v. 103. Thy successor.] The successor of Albert was Henry
of Luxembourg, by whose interposition in the affairs of Italy our
Poet hoped to have been reinstated in his native city.
v. 101. Thy sire.] The Emperor Rodolph, too intent on
increasing his power in Germany to give much of his thoughts to
Italy, "the garden of the empire."
v. 107. Capulets and Montagues.] Our ears are so familiarized
to the names of these rival families in the language of
The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: being able to argue as you have done for the superiority of injustice, and
remaining unconvinced by your own arguments. And I do believe that you are
not convinced--this I infer from your general character, for had I judged
only from your speeches I should have mistrusted you. But now, the greater
my confidence in you, the greater is my difficulty in knowing what to say.
For I am in a strait between two; on the one hand I feel that I am unequal
to the task; and my inability is brought home to me by the fact that you
were not satisfied with the answer which I made to Thrasymachus, proving,
as I thought, the superiority which justice has over injustice. And yet I
cannot refuse to help, while breath and speech remain to me; I am afraid
that there would be an impiety in being present when justice is evil spoken
The Republic |
