Davvybrookbook > Books: Read‎ (421)

STREPSIADES. What I mentioned before: that immoral way of debating.
SOKRATES. But you need to learn other things first. Now here's an example:
Which animals rightly belong to the masculine gender?*
STREPSIADES. I know all the masculine ones. Any fool knows that!
The ram, the goat, the bull, the dog, and the cock-fowl.
SOKRATES. You see what you're doing? The word for cock you've used
Is the same one you always use for hens as well.
STREPSIADES. Is that really so?
SOKRATES. But of course: you say 'cock' for both.*
STREPSIADES. By Poseidon, that's right! Well, what should I say then instead?

MORAL. Come over here then! Show yourself
To the audience there. What an impudent thing!
IMMORAL. Go wherever you want! The bigger the crowd
The more I'll argue you into the ground.
MORAL. What you?
IMMORAL. With my words.
MORAL. But you're weaker than me.
IMMORAL. All the same I'll defeat
One who makes the claim that he's stronger than me.
MORAL. What's your clever trick then?
IMMORAL. I have new ideas I've discovered myself.
MORAL. Well such things only flourish
(gesturing at audience) On account of these idiots sitting in front of us here.
IMMORAL. But these people are clever.

DAMON
"Arise, O star
That greets the brightening day, while I lament Because my sworn love Nysa has deceived me;
Although no help has come for me from them,
I call on the gods to witness as I die.

My flute, begin to play Maenalus' song.
There's music in the groves that grow upon
The sides of Mount Maenalus, music of Pan,
Who first called music forth from silent reeds,
The songs of shepherds telling of their loves.

My flute, begin to play Maenalus' song.
Nysa given to Mopsus! What is it that
Lovers can hope for? Griffins and mares will mate,
And in the next age the timid doe will come
Down to the stream to drink along with dogs.

PYLADES:
The great achievement that one's soul desires
Is infinite. We should like all our deeds
To be at once as great as they become
When long years later, in the mouths of bards,
Their fame has spread to many lands and peoples.
How fine the deeds of our forefathers sound
When we are young and in the quiet evening
Drink in their music as some minstrel plays!
Yet what we do is what it was to them:
Mere hard, unfinished labour.
And thus we chase the things that flee from us
And hardly heed the path that we are treading,
Or see the footprints of our ancestors,
The traces of their lives, left there beside us.
We hurry in pursuit of their mere shadows,
Glimpsing them far ahead, a godlike vision
That crowns the golden-clouded mountain-tops.
I can respect no man who ponders how
Public opinion may one day exalt him.
But you should thank the gods that in your youth
They have done such great things through you already.

THOAS:
…
Be priestess of Diana, as she chose you.
But may she pardon me the sin of having,
Against old usage and against my conscience,
Withheld her sacrificial victims from her.
No stranger lands here with impunity:
He is condemned to death by ancient law.
You alone bound me with such magic ties
Of kindness—half a gentle daughter's love
And half the sweet affection of a bride,
Or so it seemed-which charmed and held my heart
So fast that I forgot my royal duty.
For you had lulled my senses into slumber:
I did not hear my people's murmurings
Of discontent. Now my son's early death
Is blamed more openly on me; the crowd
Demands immediate sacrifice, and I
No longer will delay it for your sake.

”Your books, your art, they all smell of murder. Instead of doing something for these unfortunate mountaineers, you help death, you look for exalted themes, you look here for beauty so as to feed your art. You don’t see that this is beauty that kills, as a young writer said whom you certainly do not care for.”

"You, my friend a citizen of the great city of Athens, famous for its culture and Power—are you not ashamed of heaping up the largest amount of money and status and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth and improving as much as possible your soul, which you never regard nor heed at all?" And if some one of you disagrees and says that he does care, then I will not leave him nor let him go at once, but will interrogate and examine and cross-examine him, and if I think that he has no virtue in him but only says that he has, I shall reproach him with undervaluing what is most precious, and overvaluing what is less. And I shall repeat the same words to everyone whom I meet, young and old, citizen and foreigner, but especially to you citizens, inasmuch as you are my brothers. For this is the command of the god— know it well. And I believe that no greater good has ever happened to you in this city than my service to the god.

III
OFFENSIVE STRATEGY
SUN Tzu said:
1. Generally in war the best policy is to take a state intact; to ruin it is inferior to this.
Li Ch'üan: Do not put a premium on killing.
2. To capture the enemy's army is better than to destroy it; to take intact a battalion, a company or a five-man squad is better than to destroy them.
3. For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.
4. Thus, what is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy's strategy;
Tu Mu: . . . The Grand Duke said: 'He who excels at resolving difficulties does so before they arise. He who excels in conquering his enemies triumphs before threats materialize.'

CHAPTER V
On Responding to Changing Conditions
SECTION II
I. Marquis Wu asked: 'If a greatly superior enemy force attacks my inferior force, what remedy is there?'
Wu Ch'i replied: 'If the ground is easy, avoid him; in a defile, encounter him. For it is said that when one attacks ten, no place is better than a defile; for ten to attack a hundred nothing is better than a precipitous place. When one thousand attack ten thousand, nothing is better than a mountain pass. Now if you have a small force and suddenly attack the enemy in a narrow road with gongs sounding and drums rolling, his host, however large, will be alarmed.
'And therefore it is said that one employing large numbers seeks easy ground; one employing small numbers, constricted ground.'

21. Duke Ai asked Tsai Yü? about the Holy Ground. Tsai Yü replied, The Hsia sovereigns marked theirs with a pine, the men of Yin used a cypress, the men of Chou used a chestnut-tree, saying, 'This will cause the common people to be in fear and trembling.' The Master hearing of it said, What is over and done with, one does not discuss. What has already taken its course, one does not criticize; what already belongs to the past, one does not censure.

11. The Master said, He who by reanimating the Old can gain knowledge of the New is fit to be a teacher.

They called me Helen. Let me tell you all the truth of what has happened to me. The three goddesses came to remote Ida, and to Paris, for him to judge their loveliness, and beauty was the cause. These were Hera, the Lady of Cyprus, and the Daughter of Zeus. But Aphrodite, promising my loveliness (if what is cursed is ever lovely) to the arms of Paris, won her away. Idaean Paris left his herds for Sparta, thinking I was to be his.

Hecuba
Why?
Women killed
Aegyptus' sons. Women emptied Lemnos
of its males: we murdered every one. And so
it shall be here.
But of that I say no more.
Let this woman have your safe-conduct
through the army.

Polymestor (from within)
Blind! Blind!
O light!
Light of my eyes!

EPODE
White-headed Peleus, I
Credit that tale: how at the Lapithae wedding
You with the tough centaurs fought
A spectacular fight! Then on the good ship Argo rounded the grim cape
Far beyond those Rolling Rocks few craft escape-What voyage more storied than yours?
Next you adventured with Heracles to Troy,
Where he, of the true stock of Zeus, hung garlands of carnage.
Your fame fast bound to Heracles,
You returned to the Greek seas.

Poseidon
I am Poseidon. I come from the Aegean depths
of the sea beneath whose waters Nereid choirs evolve
the intricate bright circle of their dancing feet.
for since that day when Phoebus Apollo and I laid down
on Trojan soil the close of these stone walls, drawn
true and straight, there has always been affection in my heart
unfading, for these Phrygians and for their city;
which smolders now, fallen before the Argive spears,
ruined, sacked, gutted. Such is Athene's work, and his, the Parnassian, Epeius of Phocis, architect
and builder of the horse that swarmed with inward steel,
that fatal bulk which passed within the battlements,
whose fame hereafter shall be loud among men unborn,
the Wooden Horse, which hid the secret spears within.
Now the gods' groves are desolate, their thrones of power blood-spattered where beside the lift of the altar steps
of Zeus Defender, Priam was cut down and died.
The ships of the Achaeans load with spoils of Troy now, the piled gold of Phrygia. And the men of Greece
who made this expedition and took the city, stay
only for the favoring stern-wind now to greet their wives
and children after ten years' harvest wasted here.

Hermes
Atlas, who wears on back of bronze the ancient Abode of gods in heaven, had a daughter Whose name was Maia, born of a goddess:
She lay with Zeus and bore me, Hermes, servant Of the immortals. I have come here to Delphi Where Phoebus sits at earth's mid-center, gives His prophecies to men, and passes judgment On what is happening now and what will come.
For in the famous city of the Greeks Called after Pallas of the Golden Spear, Phoebus compelled Erechtheus daughter Creusa To take him as her lover—in that place Below Athene's hill whose northern scarp The Attic lords have named the Long Rocks.

Death
Ah!
You at this house, Phoebus? Why do you haunt
the place. It is unfair to take for your own
and spoil the death-spirits' privileges.
Was it not enough, then, that you blocked the death
of Admetus, and overthrew the Fates
by a shabby wrestler's trick? And now
your bow hand is armed to guard her too,
Alcestis, Pelias' daughter, though she
promised her life for her husband's.

Coryphaeus
What's the matter, Cyclops?

Cyclops
I'm dying.

Coryphaeus
You look terrible.

Cyclops
I feel terrible.

Coryphaeus
Were you so drunk you fell in the fire?

Cyclops
"Nobody" wounded me.

Coryphaeus
Then you're not hurt.

Cyclops
"Nobody" blinded me.

Coryphaeus
Then you're not blind.

Cyclops
Blind as you.

Coryphaeus
How could nobody make you blind?

Cyclops
You mock me. Where is "Nobody"?

(Enter the Chorus of old men of Thebes. They walk painfully, leaning upon their staffs.)

Chorus

STROPHE
Leaning on our staffs we come
to the vaulted halls and the old man's bed,
our song the dirge of the dying swan,
ourselves mere words, ghosts that walk
in the visions of night, trembling with age,
trembling to help.
O children, fatherless sons,
old man and wretched wife
who mourn your lord in Hades!

ANTISTROPHE
Do not falter. Drag your weary feet
onward like the colt that, yoked and slow,
tugs uphill, on rock, the heavy wain.
If any man should fall,
support him with your hands,
age hold up his years
as once when he was young
he supported his peers in the toils of war
and was no blot on his country's fame.

EPODE
Look how the children's eyes
flash forth like their father's!
Misfortune has not left them,
nor has loveliness.
O Hellas, Hellas,
losing these boys,
what allies you lose!
No more. Look: I see my country’s tryant,
Lycus, approaching the palace.

Iphigenia (telling them)
I dreamt Orestes dead! It was a lie!

Orestes
Dreams, lies, lies, dreams—nothing but emptiness!
Even the Gods, with all Their name for wisdom,
Have only dreams and lies and lose Their course,
Blinded, confused, and ignorant as we.
The wisest men follow their own direction
And listen to no prophet guiding them.
None but the fools believe in oracles,
Forsaking their own judgment. Those who know,
Know that such men can only come to grief.

’If you have any complaint to make about the results of your efforts hitherto, or about myself as your commander, there is no more to say. But let me remind you: through your courage and endurance you have gained possession of Ionia, the Hellespont, both Phrygias, Cappadocia, Paphlagonia, Lydia, Caria, Lycia, Pamphylia, Phoenicia, and Egypt; the Greek part of Libya is now yours, together with much of Arabia, lowland Syria, Mesopotamia, Babylon, and Susia; Persia and Media with all the territories either formerly controlled by them or not are in your hands; you have made yourselves masters of the lands beyond the Caspian Gates, beyond the Caucasus, beyond the Tanais, of Bactria, Hyrcania, and the Hyrcanian sea; we have driven the Scythians back into the desert; and Indus and Hydaspes, Acesines and Hydrates flow now through country which is ours. With all that accomplished, why do you hesitate to extend the power of Macedon - your power - to the Hyphasis and the tribes on the other side? Are you afraid…

‘For a man who is a man, work, in my belief, if it is directed to noble ends, has no object beyond itself; none the less, if any of you wish to know what limit may be set to this particular campaign, let me tell you that the area of country still ahead of us, from here to the Ganges and the Eastern ocean, is comparatively small, You will undoubtedly find that this ocean is connected with the Hyranian Sea, for the great Stream of, Ocean encircles the earth. Moreover I shall prove to you, my friends, that the Indian and Persian Gulfs and the Hyrcanian Sea are all three connected and continuous. Our ships will sail round from the Persian Gulf to Libya as far as the Pillars of Hercules, whence all Libya to the eastward will soon be ours, and all Asia too, and to this empire there will be no boundaries but what God Himself has made for the whole world.

„Da, ultima, da! Îsi zise istovit. Am fost eu, Toma Novac !...Dar Mahavira si Unamonu, si Gungunum, si Axius, Adeodatus, si Gaston ?... Tot eu? Acelasi eu? Atunci Na-vamalika, Isit, Hamma, Servilia, Maria, Yvonne ar fi tot Ileana ?... Adica precum spunea Aleman?... Si dacã toate astea sunt inchipuiri care s-au smuls acuma din subconstientul meu ?... De ce insã tocmai acuma ?"

"All right, the last one!" he said to himself in a state of exhaustion. "That was me, Toma Novac! ... But what about Mahavira and Unamonu, and Gungunum, and Axius, and Adeodatus, and Gaston?... Were they also me? The same self? What about Navamalika, Isit, Hamma, Servilia, Maria, Yvonne, were they Ileana?...That is, according to Aleman?... And suppose all of these are merely figments of my imagination snatched out of my subconsciousness?... But why now and not at any other time?"

I think that my readers must have heard enough of this tale of Cholula, and I wish that I were finished with it. But I cannot omit to mention the cages of stout wooden bars that we found in the city, full of men and boys who were being fattened for the sacrifice at which their flesh would be eaten. We destroyed these cages, and Cortes ordered the prisoners who were confined in them to return to their native districts. Then, with threats, he ordered the Caciques and captains and papas of the city to imprison no more Indians in that way and to eat no more human flesh. They promised to obey him. But since they were not kept, of what use were their promises?

Let us anticipate a little and say that these were the great cruelties about which the bishop of Chiapas, Fray Bartolome de las Casas, wrote, and was never tired of talking. He insisted that we punished the Cholulans for no reason at all, or just to amuse ourselves and because we had a fancy to. He writes so persuasively that he would convince anyone who had not witnessed the event, or had no knowledge of it, that these and the other cruelties of which he writes took place as he says, whereas the reverse is true.

Still on his horse, with Doña Marina beside him, Cortes then asked the Caciques why they had turned traitors and decided the night before that they would kill us, seeing that we had done them no harm but had merely warned them against certain things as we had warned every town through which we had passed: against wickedness and human sacrifice, and the worship of idols, and eating their neighbours' flesh, and sodomy. All we had done was to tell them to lead good lives and inform them of certain matters concerning our holy faith, and this without compulsion of any kind.

I should like now to say no more - until, that is, fresh reports arrive of worse evils (if such there could be) or until I am in a position to return to the region to see matters for myself. For forty-two years now, these matters have been constantly before my eyes and on my mind, and I can honestly say, as God is my witness, that I have solid grounds for believing that the depredations, the harm, the destruction, the depopulation, the atrocities and massacres, the horrible cruelty and barbarism, the violence, the injustice, the plunder and the wholesale murder that all these territories have witnessed and their people suffered (and still suffer) are on such a scale that what I have here been able to relate is no more than a thousandth part of the reality of what has been taking place and continues to take place.

Like all children, adolescents, or mature men, I smiled readily, I even laughed heartily, but as my life rounded out a cycle, I dramatized it. Eliminating the elements of mischievousness, levity, and prankishness, I have retained only those which are properly tragic: Fear, Despair, unhappy Love . . . and I free myself from them only by declaiming those poems which are as convulsed as the faces of sybils. They leave my soul clarified. But if the child in whom I think I see myself laughs or smiles, he breaks up the drama which had been constructed and which is my past life when I think back to it; he destroys it, falsifies it, at least because he manifests an attitude which the character could not have had; he tears to bits the memory of a harmonious (though painful) life, forces me to see myself becoming another, and on the first drama grafts a second.