| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Euthyphro by Plato: be thrown away upon me. Please then to tell me, what is the nature of this
service to the gods? Do you mean that we prefer requests and give gifts to
them?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, I do.
SOCRATES: Is not the right way of asking to ask of them what we want?
EUTHYPHRO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And the right way of giving is to give to them in return what
they want of us. There would be no meaning in an art which gives to any
one that which he does not want.
EUTHYPHRO: Very true, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Then piety, Euthyphro, is an art which gods and men have of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Grimm's Fairy Tales by Brothers Grimm: way of fattening him. When four weeks had gone by, and Hansel still
remained thin, she was seized with impatience and would not wait any
longer. 'Now, then, Gretel,' she cried to the girl, 'stir yourself,
and bring some water. Let Hansel be fat or lean, tomorrow I will kill
him, and cook him.' Ah, how the poor little sister did lament when she
had to fetch the water, and how her tears did flow down her cheeks!
'Dear God, do help us,' she cried. 'If the wild beasts in the forest
had but devoured us, we should at any rate have died together.' 'Just
keep your noise to yourself,' said the old woman, 'it won't help you
at all.'
Early in the morning, Gretel had to go out and hang up the cauldron
Grimm's Fairy Tales |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Hellenica by Xenophon: suffered no wrong at our hands"--in other words, the surrender of the
acropolis.[8] But to this they could not bring themselves. Whereupon
he invaded the territory of Phlius, and promptly drawing lines of
circumvallation, commenced the siege. Many of the Lacedaemonians
objected, for the sake of a mere handful of wretched people, so to
embroil themselves with a state of over five thousand men.[9] For,
indeed, to leave no doubt on this score, the men of Phlius met
regularly in assembly in full view of those outside. But Agesilaus was
not to be beaten by this move. Whenever any of the townsmen came out,
drawn by friendship or kinship with the exiles, in every case the
king's instructions were to place the public messes[10] at the service
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