| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Statesman by Plato: changes in the heaven affect the animal world, and this being the greatest
of them, is most destructive to men and animals. At the beginning of the
cycle before our own very few of them had survived; and on these a mighty
change passed. For their life was reversed like the motion of the world,
and first of all coming to a stand then quickly returned to youth and
beauty. The white locks of the aged became black; the cheeks of the
bearded man were restored to their youth and fineness; the young men grew
softer and smaller, and, being reduced to the condition of children in mind
as well as body, began to vanish away; and the bodies of those who had died
by violence, in a few moments underwent a parallel change and disappeared.
In that cycle of existence there was no such thing as the procreation of
Statesman |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Helen of Troy And Other Poems by Sara Teasdale: Where the girls with thirsty eyes go by
On the errand each man knows.
And on we walked and on we walked,
At the door at last we said good-bye;
I knew by his smile he had not heard
My heart's unuttered cry.
With the man I love who loves me not
I walked in the street-lamps' flare --
But oh, the girls who can ask for love
In the lights of Union Square.
Central Park at Dusk
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Hiero by Xenophon: any one to kill an adulterer that found him in the act; but if any
one forced a free woman, a hundred drachmas was the fine; if he
enticed her, twenty;--except those that sell themselves openly,
that is, harlots, who go openly to those that hire them" (Clough,
i. p. 190).
[7] Or, "fall a victim to passion through some calamity," "commit a
breach of chastity." Cf. Aristot. "H. A." VII. i. 9.
[8] Or, "if true affection still retain its virgin purity." As to this
extraordinary passage, see Hartman, op. cit. p. 242 foll.
So sovereign a good do I, for my part, esteem it to be loved, that I
do verily believe spontaneous blessings are outpoured from gods and
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