| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Myths and Myth-Makers by John Fiske: whom an old proverb, preserved by Aulus Gellius, describes as
a stealer of the clouds.[111]
[110] There is nothing in common between the names Hercules
and Herakles. The latter is a compound, formed like
Themistokles; the former is a simple derivative from the root
of hercere, "to enclose." If Herakles had any equivalent in
Latin, it would necessarily begin with S, and not with H, as
septa corresponds to epta, sequor to epomai, etc. It should be
noted, however, that Mommsen, in the fourth edition of his
History, abandons this view, and observes: "Auch der
griechische Herakles ist fruh als Herclus, Hercoles, Hercules
Myths and Myth-Makers |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: a light flashed, and was instantly followed by a clap of thunder
right over the hotel. The rain swished with it, and immediately
there were all those sounds of windows being shut and doors slamming
violently which accompany a storm.
The room grew suddenly several degrees darker, for the wind
seemed to be driving waves of darkness across the earth. No one
attempted to eat for a time, but sat looking out at the garden,
with their forks in the air. The flashes now came frequently,
lighting up faces as if they were going to be photographed,
surprising them in tense and unnatural expressions. The clap
followed close and violently upon them. Several women half rose
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Duchess of Padua by Oscar Wilde: That I may look into those eyes, and tell you
I love you, never more than now when Death
Thrusts his cold lips between us: Beatrice,
I love you: have you no word left to say?
Oh, I can bear the executioner,
But not this silence: will you not say you love me?
Speak but that word and Death shall lose his sting,
But speak it not, and fifty thousand deaths
Are, in comparison, mercy. Oh, you are cruel,
And do not love me.
DUCHESS
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