| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Laches by Plato: endures, having the knowledge of horsemanship, is not so courageous as he
who endures, having no such knowledge?
LACHES: So I should say.
SOCRATES: And he who endures, having a knowledge of the use of the sling,
or the bow, or of any other art, is not so courageous as he who endures,
not having such a knowledge?
LACHES: True.
SOCRATES: And he who descends into a well, and dives, and holds out in
this or any similar action, having no knowledge of diving, or the like, is,
as you would say, more courageous than those who have this knowledge?
LACHES: Why, Socrates, what else can a man say?
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Poems of William Blake by William Blake: And lay me down in thy cold bed, and leave my shining lot.
Queen of the vales, the matron Clay answered: I heard thy sighs.
And all thy moans flew o'er my roof, but I have call'd them down:
Wilt thou O Queen enter my house, tis given thee to enter,
And to return: fear nothing, enter with thy virgin feet.
IV.
The eternal gates terrific porter lifted the northern bar:
Thel enter'd in & saw the secrets of the land unknown;
She saw the couches of the dead, & where the fibrous roots
Of every heart on earth infixes deep its restless twists:
A land of sorrows & of tears where never smile was seen.
Poems of William Blake |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: to translate the same Greek word by the same English word. There is no
reason why in the New Testament (Greek) should always be rendered
'righteousness,' or (Greek) 'covenant.' In such cases the translator may
be allowed to employ two words--sometimes when the two meanings occur in
the same passage, varying them by an 'or'--e.g. (Greek), 'science' or
'knowledge,' (Greek), 'idea' or 'class,' (Greek), 'temperance' or
'prudence,'--at the point where the change of meaning occurs. If
translations are intended not for the Greek scholar but for the general
reader, their worst fault will be that they sacrifice the general effect
and meaning to the over-precise rendering of words and forms of speech.
(8) There is no kind of literature in English which corresponds to the
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