| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Sir John Mandeville: meeting, and namely such as they have proved and assayed by
experience of long time; for they say that thilk good meeting ne
may not come but of the grace of God. And therefore they make
images like to those things that they have belief in, for to behold
them and worship them first at morning, or they meet any
contrarious things. And there be also some Christian men that say,
that some beasts have good meeting, that is to say for to meet with
them first at morrow, and some beasts wicked meeting; and that they
have proved oft-time that the hare hath full evil meeting, and
swine and many other beasts. And the sparrow-hawk or other fowls
of ravine, when they fly after their prey and take it before men of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Bucolics by Virgil: And jagged ice not wound thy tender feet!
I will depart, re-tune the songs I framed
In verse Chalcidian to the oaten reed
Of the Sicilian swain. Resolved am I
In the woods, rather, with wild beasts to couch,
And bear my doom, and character my love
Upon the tender tree-trunks: they will grow,
And you, my love, grow with them. And meanwhile
I with the Nymphs will haunt Mount Maenalus,
Or hunt the keen wild boar. No frost so cold
But I will hem with hounds thy forest-glades,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Art of War by Sun Tzu: second in the field and has to hasten to battle will arrive
exhausted.
2. Therefore the clever combatant imposes his will on the
enemy, but does not allow the enemy's will to be imposed on him.
[One mark of a great soldier is that he fight on his own
terms or fights not at all. [1] ]
3. By holding out advantages to him, he can cause the enemy
to approach of his own accord; or, by inflicting damage, he can
make it impossible for the enemy to draw near.
[In the first case, he will entice him with a bait; in the
second, he will strike at some important point which the enemy
The Art of War |
