A spring evening. A large room in an old house. A woman of a certain age, dressed in black, is speaking to a young man. They have not turned on the lights. Through both windows the moonlight shines relentlessly. I forgot to mention that the Woman in Black...
So we stood there, trading heartsick stories, deep in grief, as the tears streamed down our faces. But now there came the ghosts of Peleus’ son Achilles, Patroclus, fearless Antilochus—and Great Ajax too, the first in stature, first in build and bearing of all the Argives after Peleus’ matchless son....
For some people it comes a day when either the great Yes or the great No needs to be said. It’s clear at once who has ready within him the Yes, and by saying it, he follows the path of honor and conviction. The denier does not regret. Asked again, he...
Honor is due to those who are keeping watch, Sentinels guarding their own Thermopylae; Never distracted from what is right to do, And right to be; in all things virtuous, But never so hardened by virtue as not to be Compassionate, available to pity; Generous if they’re rich, but generous too, Doing...
RECTIUS VIVES You will live better, Licinius, by neither always pressing the deep nor, while you carefully dread storms, by excessively pressing the treacherous shore. Whoever values a golden mean is safely free from the squalor of a worn-out house, is soberly free from an envious palace. The vast pine is more often moved by...
And if you can’t shape your life the way you want, at least try as much as you can not to degrade it by too much contact with the world, by too much activity and talk. Try not to degrade it by dragging it along, taking it around and exposing it...
Bend and you will be whole. Curl and you will be straight. Keep empty and you will be filled. Grow old and you will be renewed. Have little and you will gain. Have much and you will be confused. Therefore, the Sage embraces the One, And becomes a Pattern to all under...
May 1907 As long as you chase happiness, you are not ready to be happy, even if you owned everything. As long as you lament a loss, run after prizes in restless races, you have not yet known peace. But when you have moved beyond desire, become a stranger to your goals and...
When they saw that Patroclus was slain, who had been so stalwart, and strong, and young, the horses of Achilles started to weep; their immortal nature was indignant at the sight of this work of death. They would shake their heads and toss their manes, stamp the ground with their feet,...
O you who are cruel still, and a master of Venus’s gifts, when a white, unexpected plumage surmounts all your arrogance, and the tresses that wave on your shoulders have all been shorn away, and the colour that now outshines the flower of the crimson rose is transformed, my...
