East Coker A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion, Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle With words and meanings. The poetry does not matter. It was not (to start again) what one had expected. What was to be the value of the long looked forward to, Long hoped for calm, the autumnal serenity And the wisdom of age? Had they deceived us Or deceived themselves, the quiet-voiced elders, […]
Read moreTag: death
“Gilgamesh” by Anonymous
Aristotle writes in Magna Moralia, “When we wish to see our own face, we do so by looking into the mirror, in the same way when we wish to know ourselves we can obtain that knowledge by looking at our friend. For the friend is, as we assert, a second self.” For Gilgamesh, the demigod-king of Uruk, knowledge of his intimate friend Enkidu, his second self, ultimately leads to knowledge […]
Read more“Moralia: II. Consolation of Grief” by Plutarch
The Stream of Time What is there cruel or so very distressing in being dead? For what wonder if the separable be separated, if the combustible be consumed, and the corruptible be corrupted? For at what time is death not existent in our very selves? As Heraclitus says: “Living and dead are potentially the same thing, and so too waking and sleeping, and young and old. For the latter revert […]
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“Pilgrim’s Progress” by John Bunyan
Pilgrim’s Progress is an original work that does not borrow grandeur from classics but becomes a classic by its own simplicity and profundity. Bunyan writes with clarity and structure, and insights into human nature. In his essay Why I am not a Christian, Bertrand Russell lists disbelief in a literal Hell as one of the reasons. I didn’t get far into this book on my first attempt more than twenty […]
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“Alcestis” by Euripides
Admetus was spared by Death on condition that he could find a substitute. No one, not even his own parents were willing to die in his stead, but only his wife, Alcestis, offered to die for him. It may be worth noting that the life of a woman was valued far less than that of a man in ancient Greek culture. I cannot fully sympathize with Admetus when he grieves […]
Read more“The Women of Trachis” by Sophocles
The Love That Kills Heracles loved Iole and because her father would not give her to him in marriage, he killed her father and other members of her family. His wife Deianira was afraid to lose him to the younger Iole, so she gave him a robe that she thought was a love charm but was in fact dipped in poison, causing Heracles to die in extreme agony. Quotes: Ah, […]
Read more“Tusculan Disputations” by Cicero
“Life is not an easy matter…. You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness.” –Leon Trotsky “Diary in Exile” For Cicero, the Roman statesman who was beset by sorrows and troubles in his old age (death of his beloved daughter, his political exile and […]
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