--- DICTIONARIES (in Dictionaries, in Quotes, in Chapters)

--- QUOTES [1 / 1 - 66 / 66] (in Dictionaries, in Quotes, in Chapters)

KEYS (10k)

   1 Hermann Hesse

NEW FULL DB (2.4M)

   50 Demian Bichir

   7 Hermann Hesse

   2 Hermann Hesse
   2 Demian Maia

   2 Alec Hutson

1:On that spring day in the park I saw a young woman who attracted me. She was tall and slender, elegantly dressed, and had an intelligent and boyish face. I liked her at once. She was my type and began to fill my imagination. She probably was not much older than I but seemed far more mature, well-defined, a full-grown woman, but with a touch of exuberance and boyishness in her face, and this was what I liked above all . I had never managed to approach a girl with whom I had fallen in love, nor did I manage in this case. But the impression she made on me was deeper than any previous one had been and the infatuation had a profound influence on my life. Suddenly a new image had risen up before me, a lofty and cherished image. And no need, no urge was as deep or as fervent within me as the craving to worship and admire. I gave her the name Beatrice, for, even though I had not read Dante, I knew about Beatrice from an English painting of which I owned a reproduction. It showed a young pre-Raphaelite woman, long-limbed and slender, with long head and etherealized hands and features. My beautiful young woman did not quite resemble her, even though she, too, revealed that slender and boyish figure which I loved, and something of the ethereal, soulful quality of her face. Although I never addressed a single word to Beatrice, she exerted a profound influence on me at that time. She raised her image before me, she gave me access to a holy shrine, she transformed me into a worshiper in a temple. From one day to the next I stayed clear of all bars and nocturnal exploits. I could be alone with myself again and enjoyed reading and going for long walks. My sudden conversion drew a good deal of mockery in its wake. But now I had something I loved and venerated, I had an ideal again, life was rich with intimations of mystery and a feeling of dawn that made me immune to all taunts. I had come home again to myself, even if only as the slave and servant of a cherished image. I find it difficult to think back to that time without a certain fondness. Once more I was trying most strenuously to construct an intimate "world of light" for myself out of the shambles of a period of devastation; once more I sacrificed everything within me to the aim of banishing darkness and evil from myself. And, furthermore, this present "world of light" was to some extent my own creation; it was no longer an escape, no crawling back to -nether and the safety of irresponsibility; it was a new duty, one I had invented and desired on my own, with responsibility and self-control. My sexuality, a torment from which I was in constant flight, was to be transfigured nto spirituality and devotion by this holy fire. Everything :brk and hateful was to be banished, there were to be no more tortured nights, no excitement before lascivious picures, no eavesdropping at forbidden doors, no lust. In place of all this I raised my altar to the image of Beatrice, :.. and by consecrating myself to her I consecrated myself to the spirit and to the gods, sacrificing that part of life which I withdrew from the forces of darkness to those of light. My goal was not joy but purity, not happiness but beauty, and spirituality. This cult of Beatrice completely changed my life. ~ Hermann Hesse, Demian ,

*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***

1:I'm an old-fashioned guy. ~ Demian Bichir

2:I believe in creative work. ~ Demian Bichir

3:I try to be as clear as I can be. ~ Demian Bichir

4:I don't hide or play stupid games. ~ Demian Bichir

5:Don’t complicate whatever is not complicated. ~ Demian Bichir

6:I open my eyes and my ears, and that’s why I work. ~ Demian Bichir

7:When you have great scripts, everything is very easy and fun. ~ Demian Bichir

8:I don't believe in bad and good, I believe we are all a mix of both. ~ Demian Bichir

9:Cinema serves as a constant reminder to us of who we are and what we are made of. ~ Demian Bichir

10:I believe in characters that can be tangible, and that you can actually relate to. ~ Demian Bichir

11:If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my years, Demian, it’s never to rely on prayer. ~ Alec Hutson

12:You have to try your best to have peace of mind, and whatever happens you know you did your best ~ Demian Maia

13:Fighting for me is a chess game. I'm not angry with my opponent. I just want to go in there and win. ~ Demian Maia

14:My two brothers and I grew up in the theater, going everywhere with my parents when they performed. ~ Demian Bichir

15:It's a really, really hard life when you don't have a document that actually gives you a name and a face. ~ Demian Bichir

16:Can you imagine saying ‘Hi’ to Sam Jackson and he goes and gives you a hug? It’s like being hugged by a lion. ~ Demian Bichir

17:I grew up in the theater. I began my career at 3. That was the first time I stepped onto a provisional stage. ~ Demian Bichir

18:‎We all share the same origin, our mothers; all of us come in at the same door. - from the preface to 'Demian ~ Hermann Hesse

19:I have been in the business long enough to know what an intense amount of work it takes to operate a theater company. ~ Demian Bichir

20:I left my parents' home when I was 22, I moved to New York with my ex-girlfriend. We did a film together with Raul Julia. ~ Demian Bichir

21:I was lucky that audiences in Mexico liked my work. I was even luckier when I got to do movies and plays with my brothers. ~ Demian Bichir

22:I hope people can stop believing everything politicians say about Mexico and the United States, and the problems that we share. ~ Demian Bichir

23:If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us. ~ Hermann Hesse, Demian

24:Lincoln' is a powerful film. It's one of those epic films that talk about this very specific issue in history of the United States. ~ Demian Bichir

25:We all have that capacity, to be two things. And after all I was named for both the devil and the angel. Demonio y angel. Dem-y-an. ~ Demian Bichir

26:You don't need tons of money to create art. You do need tons of money to be a part of show business. They are two different things. ~ Demian Bichir

27:When you do a film, all you want is to make the best film possible. You don't think about Oscars. But it's really flattering. Please, bring it on! ~ Demian Bichir

28:When you shoot a film, you have very little time to waste, and I try to go into the character as soon as possible and stay there as much as I can. ~ Demian Bichir

29:As a young actor, I booked a movie in the U.S. I didn't speak any English at the time, so I learned my lines phonetically when I auditioned for it. ~ Demian Bichir

30:The real secret to guacamole is that you use exactly the elements that you need, which is cilantro, onion, tomato, and jalapenos. And, of course, avocado. ~ Demian Bichir

31:There's good and bad everywhere in any aspect in life. The only people who we can't really trust are politicians. Because those guys lie to everybody and constantly. ~ Demian Bichir

32:Scarlett Johansson. I think people don't really realize how great of an actress that girl is. She's so beautiful and that distracts you from what she can do as an actor. ~ Demian Bichir

33:I wanted to give my actor a break. I wanted to live and to learn English. I wanted to be anything, a cabdriver, a busboy, anything to keep me away from acting for a while. ~ Demian Bichir

34:One of my dreams is to become sufficiently famous that I can play this charity match that happens every year or two with celebrities at Old Trafford, at the house of Manchester United. ~ Demian Bichir

35:One wants to think that - and this is really a stupid thought - that through your art or whatever you do as an actor you can actually affect someone else's lives and thoughts or whatever. ~ Demian Bichir

36:There are some actors that are so gifted, that move you in such a way that every time you see their names again, you go and pay another ticket because you want to have that experience again. ~ Demian Bichir

37:There is a film called 'A Separation.' If you see it playing, go see it. It's beautiful. It's so well written and the acting is amazing. It's one of those films that you would love to be a part of. ~ Demian Bichir

38:The immigration issue is about the separation of families, and that is not human, in any country in the world, but especially in the United States. We should not root for a law that separates families. ~ Demian Bichir

39:We need to know the facts, in order to tell the politicians, "Excuse me, I don't want you to use my money on building a wall that is not going to solve any problems. We have to go this direction instead." ~ Demian Bichir

40:Heresy is a word which, when it is used without passion, signifies a private opinion. So the different sects of the old philosophers, Academians, Peripatetics, Epicureans, Stoics, &c., were called heresies. ~ Thomas Hobbes

41:I think it's very interesting how an American network chooses to tell this story. We don't name one country the good guy and the other country the bad guy. We talk about this co-responsibility that we share, in everything. ~ Demian Bichir

42:I am defined also by Woody Allen’s films and Martin Scorsese and Jim Jarmusch and Julian Schnabel or Almodóvar, or by Guillermo del Toro, Iñárritu, Cuarón. Even if we haven’t worked with them, we are all defined by their filmography. ~ Demian Bichir

43:When I met Quentin [Tarantino], he told me what every actor wishes from any director. He said, "I've been through a Demián Bichir marathon. I've watched everything you've done." Most of the time, they don't even know what you've done. ~ Demian Bichir

44:I like playing human beings - I don't believe in good or bad. I don't believe in black and white. I believe in different tonalities. I believe in different layers of emotions and states of mind. I believe in characters that can be human. ~ Demian Bichir

45:We have a demon, we have an angel inside, within our souls, and you just play with it, and sometimes the evil part of you wins the battle, in a very important decision, or in a bedtime, with your lover. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. ~ Demian Bichir

46:So, whenever you hear or see violence, there is violence on both sides of the border, or it's both country's responsibility. When we talk about trafficking with weapons, with human beings or with drugs, we talk about it on both sides of the border. ~ Demian Bichir

47:I’m an actor who’s accustomed to bringing a lot of stuff to the table, and you have to be ready because some of them will be accepted and some of them will be rejected. Then you need a generous, free, fearless, loving director like Tarantino to allow you to take those risks. ~ Demian Bichir

48:As an actor, you know when you've got great material in front of you. When you're working, you think, 'Is this the one? The one that everyone will respond to and be moved by?' You pray that you have told the story well... that your peers will see it and audiences will love it. ~ Demian Bichir

49:A lot of the things that I’ve learned in the past have been from dear friends. Rodriguez’s favorite line is “Fácil!” Easy! He makes things easy. He doesn’t complicate his life. He’s obsessed with perfection, but he makes it easy, and that’s pretty much the way I work as an actor. ~ Demian Bichir

50:If you think about portraying Americans, for example, in a Russian film, it all depends on where the American is from, if they went to school or not, and if they're well-educated or not. Is it an American from Texas, or an American from Brooklyn? Things would change with the vocabulary and the accent. ~ Demian Bichir

51:One of the first things that my English teacher told when I began studying in New York was, "You're here because if you pick it up from the street, not everyone speaks good English." And it happens all the time, anywhere. If you pick up Spanish from the streets, you're not going to be able to speak it correctly. ~ Demian Bichir

52:Each man had only one genuine vocation—to find the way to himself.… His task was to discover his own destiny—not an arbitrary one—and live it out wholly and resolutely within himself. Everything else was only a would-be existence, an attempt at evasion, a flight back to the ideals of the masses, conformity and fear of one’s own inwardness.” —from Demian by Hermann Hesse ~ Robin S Sharma

53:I have tried to defend what is most precious to our American society, a society that is now at war against the forces of racial intolerance.A big part of me making the decision was how important the play is for the times that we live in. This is a classic. It's a masterpiece of American playwriting. It's about discrimination and it's about we Mexicans being a target for so many years. ~ Demian Bichir

54:A lot of people love Tarantino’s films because they’re spectacular, they’re beautiful, they’re wonderful. He hires the best group of artists - not only actors, but everyone around: best photographers, best set designers, best production designers, costume designers. A lot of people love his films because they’re bloody, they’re gory, they’re savage. But very few people see that he’s a very political director. ~ Demian Bichir

55:When your show keeps coming back, year after year, you have a responsibility because your fans know your show sometimes better than you do. You can't play games with them. You have to be really focused and concentrated, and play at your best in every department. The writing staff has to be fantastic. Our director line-up has to be great. Everything has to be better and better. Your fans keep track of the details. ~ Demian Bichir

56:I saw Demian's face and remarked that it was not a boy's face but a man's and then I saw, or rather became aware, that it was not really the face of a man either; it had something different about it, almost a feminine element. And for the time being his face seemed neither masculine nor childish, neither old nor young but a hundred years old, almost timeless and bearing the mark of other periods of history than our own. ~ Hermann Hesse

57:When we talk about corruption, there's corruption on both sides of the border. That's what I think is interesting. I'm from Mexico, so when I see a Mexican portrayed in the American market on TV or films, you better do it right because you won't fool me. I'm sure no one really cares on this side of the border, if they get it right or not, but all the way from Mexico, to another 120 countries where the show goes, they will be able to tell the difference. ~ Demian Bichir

58:People say that the brain is a muscle and that one of the best exercises for any brain is learning another language and to switch from one to another as much as you can. I've found out that when I have trouble regarding any character or any particular scene in English, sometimes I'll switch to Spanish and I'll solve the problem that I've encountered. If I'm working in Spanish and I don't know how to approach certain scenes or certain emotions, or how to say this and that, I just switch to English to try to solve it that way and it works. ~ Demian Bichir

59:There are no gods, paladin. There is no afterlife, no eternal reward. You, in fact, are a slave to a creature you cannot even comprehend.” Demian stabbed the stick he still held into the ground. “All that a man has in this world is his own will, the freedom to do what he desires. Taking away that is the greatest crime one can inflict upon another. Murder – it is terrible. But it is over in an instant and the dead never can truly understand what has happened to them. They are simply gone. But slavery – day after day, year after year shackled to another’s whims – it is the most heinous of crimes. ~ Alec Hutson

60:This change did not bring me into the community of the others, did not make me closer to anyone, but actually made me even lonelier. My reformation seemed to point in the direction of Demian, but even this was a distant fate. I did not know myself, for I was too deeply involved. It had begun with Beatrice, but for some time I had been living in such an unreal world with my paintings and my thoughts of Demian that I'd forgotten all about her, too. I could not have uttered a single word about my dreams and expectations, my inner change, to anyone, not even if I had wanted to. But how could I have wanted to? ~ Hermann Hesse

61:This change did not bring me into the community of the others, did not make me closer to anyone, but actually made me even lonelier. My reformation seemed to point in the direction of Demian, but even this was a distant fate. I did not know myself, for I was too deeply involved. It had begun with Beatrice, but for some time I had been living in such an unreal world with my paintings and my thoughts of Demian that I'd forgotten all about her, too. I could not have uttered a single word about my dreams and expectations, my inner change, to anyone, not even if I had wanted to. But how could I have wanted to? ~ Hermann Hesse

62:Permanecí largo rato mirándole, y sentí entonces, lejos aún en mi subconsciente, algo muy singular. Vi que el rostro de Demian no solamente era el de un muchacho, sino el de un hombre, pero me pareció ver todavía algo más: era como si en él hubiera también algo de un rostro de una mujer, y además, por un instante, aquel rostro no me pareció ya viril o infantil, maduro o joven, sino, en cierto modo, milenario; en cierto modo, fuera del tiempo, marcado por edades distintas a la que nosotros vivimos. Los animales pueden presentar ese aspecto, o los árboles, o las estrellas. Yo no lo sabía. No sentí exactamente por entonces esto que ahora describo; pero sí algo semejante. Tampoco supe en forma clara si la figura de Demian me atraía o me repelía. Sólo vi que era distinto de nosotros, que era como un animal, o como un espíritu, o como una pintura; pero distinto, extrañamente distinto de todos nosotros. ~ Hermann Hesse

63:Feliz emprendí mi largo camino a casa en la fría noche. Aquí y allá tropecé aún con estudiantes que se retiraban a dormir alborotando y haciendo eses. Muy a menudo había comparado su singular manera de divertirse con mi vida solitaria, unas veces con cierta envidia y otras con desprecio. Pero nunca había sentido como hoy, con plena serenidad y secreta energía, cuán poco me atañía aquello y cuán lejano y perdido era para mí aquel mundo. Me acordé de los honrados filisteos de mi ciudad natal, viejos señores rebosantes de dignidad que conservaban los recuerdos de sus años estudiantiles como la memoria de un bienaventurado paraíso y consagraban a la perdida «libertad» de aquellos años un culto como el que los poetas y otros románticos dedican a su infancia. ¡En todas partes sucedía lo mismo! Todos los hombres buscaban la «libertad» y la «felicidad» en un punto cualquiera del pasado, sólo por miedo a ver alzarse ante ellos la visión de la responsabilidad propia y del propio singular camino. Durante un par de años alborotaban y bebían, para someterse luego al rebaño y convertirse en señores graves al servicio del Estado. Era verdad lo que Demian afirmaba: nuestro Mundo estaba carcomido, y esa estupidez estudiantil era aún menos estúpida y menos despreciable que ciertas otras. ~ Hermann Hesse

64:At the end of that class Demian said to me thoughtfully: "There’s something I don’t like about this story, Sinclair. Why don’t you read it once more and give it the acid test? There’s something about it that doesn’t taste right. I mean the business with the two thieves. The three crosses standing next to each other on the hill are almost impressive, to be sure. But now comes this sentimental little treatise about the good thief. At first he was a thorough scoundrel, had committed all those awful things and God knows what else, and now he dissolves in tears and celebrates such a tearful feast of self-improvement and remorse! What’s the sense of repenting if you’re two steps from the grave? I ask you. Once again, it’s nothing but a priest’s fairy tale, saccharine and dishonest, touched up with sentimentality and given a high edifying background. If you had to pick a friend from between the two thieves or decide which one you’d rather trust, you most certainly wouldn’t choose the sniveling convert. No, the other fellow, he’s a man of character. He doesn’t give a hoot for ‘conversion’, which to a man in his position can’t be anything but a pretty speech. He follows his destiny to it’s appointed end and does not turn coward and forswear the devil, who has aided and abetted him until then. He has character, and people with character tend to receive the short end of the stick in biblical stories. Perhaps he’s even a descendant of Cain. Don’t you agree?" I was dismayed. Until now I had felt completely at home in the story of the Crucifixion. Now I saw for the first time with how little individuality, with how little power of imagination I had listened to it and read it. Still, Demian’s new concept seemed vaguely sinister and threatened to topple beliefs on whose continued existence I felt I simply had to insist. No, one could not make light of everything, especially not of the most Sacred matters. As usual he noticed my resistance even before I had said anything. "I know," he said in a resigned tone of voice, "it’s the same old story: don’t take these stories seriously! But I have to tell you something: this is one of the very places that reveals the poverty of this religion most distinctly. The point is that this God of both Old and New Testaments is certainly an extraordinary figure but not what he purports to represent. He is all that is good, noble, fatherly, beautiful, elevated, sentimental—true! But the world consists of something else besides. And what is left over is ascribed to the devil, this entire slice of world, this entire half is hushed up. In exactly the same way they praise God as the father of all life but simply refuse to say a word about our sexual life on which it’s all based, describing it whenever possible as sinful, the work of the devil. I have no objection to worshiping this God Jehovah, far from it. But I mean we ought to consider everything sacred, the entire world, not merely this artificially separated half! Thus alongside the divine service we should also have a service for the devil. I feel that would be right. Otherwise you must create for yourself a God that contains the devil too and in front of which you needn’t close your eyes when the most natural things in the world take place. ~ Hermann Hesse

65:On that spring day in the park I saw a young woman who attracted me. She was tall and slender, elegantly dressed, and had an intelligent and boyish face. I liked her at once. She was my type and began to fill my imagination. She probably was not much older than I but seemed far more mature, well-defined, a full-grown woman, but with a touch of exuberance and boyishness in her face, and this was what I liked above all .    I had never managed to approach a girl with whom I had fallen in love, nor did I manage in this case. But the impression she made on me was deeper than any previous one had been and the infatuation had a profound influence on my life.    Suddenly a new image had risen up before me, a lofty and cherished image. And no need, no urge was as deep or as fervent within me as the craving to worship and admire. I gave her the name Beatrice, for, even though I had not read Dante, I knew about Beatrice from an English painting of which I owned a reproduction. It showed a young pre-Raphaelite woman, long-limbed and slender, with long head and etherealized hands and features. My beautiful young woman did not quite resemble her, even though she, too, revealed that slender and boyish figure which I loved, and something of the ethereal, soulful quality of her face.    Although I never addressed a single word to Beatrice, she exerted a profound influence on me at that time. She raised her image before me, she gave me access to a holy shrine, she transformed me into a worshiper in a temple.    From one day to the next I stayed clear of all bars and nocturnal exploits. I could be alone with myself again and enjoyed reading and going for long walks.    My sudden conversion drew a good deal of mockery in its wake. But now I had something I loved and venerated, I had an ideal again, life was rich with intimations of mystery and a feeling of dawn that made me immune to all taunts. I had come home again to myself, even if only as the slave and servant of a cherished image.    I find it difficult to think back to that time without a certain fondness. Once more I was trying most strenuously to construct an intimate "world of light" for myself out of the shambles of a period of devastation; once more I sacrificed everything within me to the aim of banishing darkness and evil from myself. And, furthermore, this present "world of light" was to some extent my own creation; it was no longer an escape, no crawling back to -nether and the safety of irresponsibility; it was a new duty, one I had invented and desired on my own, with responsibility and self-control. My sexuality, a torment from which I was in constant flight, was to be transfigured nto spirituality and devotion by this holy fire. Everything :brk and hateful was to be banished, there were to be no more tortured nights, no excitement before lascivious picures, no eavesdropping at forbidden doors, no lust. In place of all this I raised my altar to the image of Beatrice, :.. and by consecrating myself to her I consecrated myself to the spirit and to the gods, sacrificing that part of life which I withdrew from the forces of darkness to those of light. My goal was not joy but purity, not happiness but beauty, and spirituality.    This cult of Beatrice completely changed my life.    ~ Hermann Hesse, Demian,

66: Book VIII: The Book of the Gods So on the earth the seed that was sown of the centuries ripened; Europe and Asia, met on their borders, clashed in the Troad. All over earth men wept and bled and laboured, world-wide Sowing Fate with their deeds and had other fruit than they hoped for, Out of desires and their passionate griefs and fleeting enjoyments Weaving a tapestry fit for the gods to admire, who in silence Joy, by the cloud and the sunbeam veiled, and men know not their movers. They in the glens of Olympus, they by the waters of Ida Or in their temples worshipped in vain or with heart-strings of mortals Sated their vast desire and enjoying the world and each other Sported free and unscourged; for the earth was their prey and their playground. But from his luminous deep domain, from his estate of azure Zeus looked forth; he beheld the earth in its flowering greenness Spread like an emerald dream that the eyes have enthroned in the sunlight, Heard the symphonies old of the ocean recalling the ages Lost and dead from its marches salt and unharvested furrows, Felt in the pregnant hour the unborn hearts of the future. Troubled kingdoms of men he beheld, the hind in the furrow, Lords of the glebe and the serf subdued to the yoke of his fortunes, Slavegirls tending the fire and herdsmen driving the cattle, Artisans labouring long for a little hire in mens cities, Labour long and the meagre reward for a toil that is priceless. Kings in their seats august or marching swift with their armies Founded ruthlessly brittle empires. Merchant and toiler Patiently heaped up our transient wealth like the ants in their hillock. And to preserve it all, to protect this dust that must perish, Hurting the eternal soul and maiming heaven for some metal Judges condemned their brothers to chains and to death and to torment, Criminals scourgers of crime, for so are these ant-heaps founded, Punishing sin by a worse affront to our crucified natures. All the uncertainty, all the mistaking, all the delusion Naked were to his gaze; in the moonlit orchards there wandered Lovers dreaming of love that endurestill the moment of treason; Helped by the anxious joy of their kindred supported their anguish Women with travail racked for the child who shall rack them with sorrow. Hopes that were confident, fates that sprang dire from the seed of a moment, Yearning that claimed all time for its date and all life for its fuel, All that we wonder at gazing back when the passion has fallen, Labour blind and vain expense and sacrifice wasted, These he beheld with a heart unshaken; to each side he studied Seas of confused attempt and the strife and the din and the crying. All things he pierced in us gazing down with his eyelids immortal, Lids on which sleep dare not settle, the Father of men on his creatures; Nor by the cloud and the mist was obscured which baffles our eyeballs, But he distinguished our source and saw to the end of our labour. He in the animal racked knew the god that is slowly delivered; Therefore his heart rejoiced. Not alone the mind in its trouble God beholds, but the spirit behind that has joy of the torture. Might not our human gaze on the smoke of a furnace, the burning Red, intolerable, anguish of ore that is fused in the hell-heat, Shrink and yearn for coolness and peace and condemn all the labour? Rather look to the purity coming, the steel in its beauty, Rather rejoice with the master who stands in his gladness accepting Heat of the glorious god and the fruitful pain of the iron. Last the eternal gaze was fixed on Troy and the armies Marching swift to the shock. It beheld the might of Achilles Helmed and armed, knew all the craft in the brain of Odysseus, Saw Deiphobus stern in his car and the fates of Aeneas, Greece of her heroes empty, Troy enringed by her slayers, Paris a setting star and the beauty of Penthesilea. These things he saw delighted; the heart that contains all our ages Blessed our toil and grew full of its fruits, as the Artist eternal Watched his vehement drama staged twixt the sea and the mountains, Phrased in the clamour and glitter of arms and closed by the firebrand, Act itself out in blood and in passions fierce on the Troad. Yet as a father his children, who sits in the peace of his study Hearing the noise of his brood and pleased with their play and their quarrels, So he beheld our mortal race. Then, turned from the armies, Into his mind he gazed where Time is reflected and, conscient, Knew the iron knot of our human fates in their warfare. Calm he arose and left our earth for his limitless kingdoms. Far from this lower blue and high in the death-scorning spaces Lifted oer mortal mind where Time and Space are but figures Lightly imagined by Thought divine in her luminous stillness, Zeus has his palace high and there he has stabled his war-car. Thence he descends to our mortal realms; where the heights of our mountains Meet with the divine air, he touches and enters our regions. Now he ascended back to his natural realms and their rapture, There where all life is bliss and each feeling an ecstasy mastered. Thence his eagle Thought with its flashing pinions extended Winged through the world to the gods, and they came at the call, they ascended Up from their play and their calm and their works through the infinite azure. Some from our mortal domains in grove or by far-flowing river Cool from the winds of the earth or quivering with perishable fragrance Came, or our laughter they bore and the song of the sea in their paces. Some from the heavens above us arrived, our vital dominions Whence we draw breath; for there all things have life, the stone like the ilex, Clay of those realms like the children of men and the brood of the giants. There Enceladus groans oppressed and draws strength from his anguish Under a living Aetna and flames that have joy of his entrails. Fiercely he groans and rejoices expecting the end of his foemen Hastened by every pang and counts long Time by his writhings. There in the champaigns unending battle the gods and the giants, There in eternal groves the lovers have pleasure for ever, There are the faery climes and there are the wonderful pastures. Some from a marvellous Paradise hundred-realmed in its musings, Million-ecstasied, climbed like flames that in silence aspire Windless, erect in a motionless dream, yet ascending for ever. All grew aware of the will divine and were drawn to the Father. Grandiose, calm in her gait, imperious, awing the regions, Hera came in her pride, the spouse of Zeus and his sister. As at her birth from the foam of the spaces white Aphrodite Rose in the cloud of her golden hair like the moon in its halo. Aegis-bearing Athene, shielded and helmeted, answered Rushing the call and the heavens thrilled with the joy of her footsteps Dumbly repeating her name, as insulted and trampled by beauty Thrill might the soul of a lover and cry out the name of its tyrant. Others there were as mighty; for Artemis, archeress ancient, Came on her sandals lightning-tasselled. Up the vast incline Shaking the world with the force of his advent thundered Poseidon; Space grew full of his stride and his cry. Immortal Apollo Shone and his silver clang was heard with alarm in our kingdoms. Ares impetuous eyes looked forth from a cloud-drift of splendour; Themis steps appeared and Ananke, the mystic Erinnys; Nor was Hephaestus flaming strength from his father divided. Even the ancient Dis to arrive dim-featured, eternal, Seemed; but his rays are the shades and his voice is the call of the silence. Into the courts divine they crowded, radiant, burning, Perfect in utter grace and light. The joy of their spirits Calls to eternal Time and the glories of Space are his answer: Thence were these bright worlds born and persist by the throb of their heart-beats. Not in the forms that mortals have seen when assisted they scatter Mists of this earthly dust from their eyes in their moments of greatness Shone those unaging Powers; nor as in our centuries radiant Mortal-seeming bodies they wore when they mixed with our nations. Then the long youth of the world had not faded still out of our natures, Flowers and the sunlight were felt and the earth was glad like a mother. Then for a human delight they were masked in this denser vesture Earth desires for her bliss, thin veils, for the god through them glimmered. Quick were mens days with the throng of the brilliant presences near them: Gods from the wood and the valley, gods from the obvious wayside, Gods on the secret hills leaped out from their light on the mortal. Oft in the haunt and the grove they met with our kind and their touches Seized and subjected our clay to the greatness of passions supernal, Grasping the earthly virgin and forcing heaven on this death-dust. Glorifying human beauty Apollo roamed in our regions Clymene when he pursued or yearned in vain for Marpessa; Glorifying earth with a human-seeming face of the beauty Brought from her heavenly climes Aphrodite mixed with Anchises. Glimpsed in the wilds were the Satyrs, seen in the woodlands the Graces, Dryad and Naiad in river and forest, Oreads haunting Glens and the mountain-glades where they played with the manes of our lions Glimmered on death-claimed eyes; for the gods then were near us and clasped us, Heaven leaned down in love with our clay and yearned to its transience. But we have coarsened in heart and in mood; we have turned in our natures Nearer our poorer kindred; leaned to the ant and the ferret. Sight we have darkened with sense and power we have stifled with labour, Likened in mood to the things we gaze at and are in our vestures: Therefore we toil unhelped; we are left to our weakness and blindness. Not in those veils now they rose to their skies, but like loose-fitting mantles Dropped in the vestibules huge of their vigorous realms that besiege us All that reminded of earth; then clothed with raiment of swiftness Straight they went quivering up in a glory like fire or the storm-blast. Even those natural vestures of puissance they leave when they enter Minds more subtle fields and agree with its limitless regions Peopled by creatures of bliss and forms more true than earths shadows, Mind that pure from this density, throned in her splendours immortal Looks up at Light and suffers bliss from ineffable kingdoms Where beyond Mind and its rays is the gleam of a glory supernal: There our sun cannot shine and our moon has no place for her lustres, There our lightnings flash not, nor fire of these spaces is suffered. They with bodies impalpable here to our touch and our seeing, But for a higher delight, to a brighter sense, with more sweetness Palpable there and visible, thrilled with a lordlier joyance, Came to the courts of Zeus and his heavens sang to their footsteps. Harmonies flowed through the blissful coils of the kingdoms of rapture. Then by his mighty equals surrounded the Thunderer regnant Veiled his thought in sound that was heard in their souls as they listened. Veiled are the high gods always lest there should dawn on the mortal Light too great from the skies and men to their destiny clear-eyed Walk unsustained like the gods; then Night and Dawn were defeated And of their masks the deities robbed would be slaves to their subjects. Children of Immortality, gods who are joyous for ever, Rapture is ours and eternity measures our lives by his aeons. For we desireless toil who have joy in the fall as the triumph, Knowledge eternal possessing we work for an end that is destined Long already beyond by the Will of which Time is the courser. Therefore death cannot alter our lives nor pain our enjoyment. But in the world of mortals twilight is lord of its creatures. Nothing they perfectly see, but all things seek and imagine, Out of the clod who have come and would climb from their mire to our heavens. Yet are the heavenly seats not easy even for the chosen: Rough and remote is that path; that ascent is too hard for the death-bound. Hard are Gods terms and few can meet them of men who are mortal. Mind resists; their breath is a clog; by their tools they are hampered, Blindly mistaking the throb of their mortal desires for our guidance. How shall they win in their earth to our skies who are clay and a life-wind, But that their hearts we invade? Our shocks on their lives come incessant, Ease discourage and penetrate coarseness; sternness celestial Forces their souls towards the skies and their bodies by anguish are sifted. We in the mortal wake an immortal strength by our tortures And by the flame of our lightnings choose out the vessels of godhead. This is the nature of earth that to blows she responds and by scourgings Travails excited; pain is the bed of her blossoms of pleasure. Earth that was wakened by pain to life and by hunger to thinking Left to her joys rests inert and content with her gains and her station. But for the unbearable whips of the gods back soon to her matter She would go glad and the goal would be missed and the aeons be wasted. But for the god in their breasts unsatisfied, but for his spurrings Soon would the hero turn beast and the sage reel back to the savage; Man from his difficult heights would recoil and be mud in the earth-mud. This by pain we prevent; we compel his feet to the journey. But in their minds to impression made subject, by forms of things captured Blind is the thought and presumptuous the hope and they swerve from our goading; Blinded are human hearts by desire and fear and possession, Darkened is knowledge on earth by hope the helper of mortals. Now too from earth and her children voices of anger and weeping Beat at our thrones; tis the grief and the wrath of fate-stricken creatures, Mortals struggling with destiny, hearts that are slaves to their sorrow. We unmoved by the cry will fulfil our unvarying purpose. Troy shall fall at last and the ancient ages shall perish. You who are lovers of Ilion turn from the moans of her people, Chase from your hearts their prayers, blow back from your nostrils the incense. Let not one nation resist by its glory the good of the ages. Twilight thickens over man and he moves to his winter of darkness. Troy that displaced with her force and her arms the luminous ancients, Sinks in her turn by the ruder strength of the half-savage Achaians. They to the Hellene shall yield and the Hellene fall by the Roman. Rome too shall not endure, but by strengths ill-shaped shall be broken, Nations formed in the ice and mist, confused and crude-hearted. So shall the darker and ruder always prevail oer the brilliant Till in its turn to a ruder and darker it falls and is shattered. So shall mankind make speed to destroy what twas mighty creating. Ever since knowledge failed and the ancient ecstasy slackened, Light has been helper to death and darkness increases the victor. So shall it last till the fallen ages return to their greatness. For if the twilight be helped not, night oer the world cannot darken; Night forbidden how shall a greater dawn be effected? Gods of the light who know and resist that the doomed may have succour, Always then shall desire and passion strive with Ananke? Conquer the cry of your heart-strings that man too may conquer his sorrow, Stilled in his yearnings. Cease, O ye gods, from the joy of rebellion. Open the eye of the soul, admit the voice of the Silence. So in the courts of Heaven august the Thunderer puissant Spoke to his sons in their souls and they heard him, mighty in silence. Then to her brother divine the white-armed passionless Hera: Zeus, we remember; thy sons forget, Apollo and Ares. Hera, queen of the heavens, they forget not, but choose to be mindless. This is the greatness of gods that they know and can put back the knowledge; Doing the work they have chosen they turn not for fruit nor for failure, Griefless they walk to their goal and strain not their eyes towards the ending. Light that they have they can lose with a smile, not as souls in the darkness Clutch at every beam and mistake their one ray for all splendour. All things are by Time and the Will eternal that moves us, And for each birth its hour is set in the night or the dawning. There is an hour for knowledge, an hour to forget and to labour. Great Cronion ceased and high in the heavenly silence Rose in their midst the voice of the loud impetuous Ares Sounding far in the luminous fields of his soul as with thunder. Father, we know and we have not forgotten. This is our godhead, Still to strive and never to yield to the evil that conquers. I will not dwell with the Greeks nor aid them save forced by Ananke And because lives of the great and the blood of the strong are my portion. This too thou knowest, our nature enjoys in mankind its fulfilment. War is my nature and greatness and hardness, the necks of the vanquished; Force is my soul and strength is my bosom; I shout in the battle Breaking cities like toys and the nations are playthings of Ares: Hither and thither I shove them and throw down or range on my table. Constancy most I love, nobility, virtue and courage; Fugitive hearts I abhor and the nature fickle as sea-foam. Now if the ancient spirit of Titan battle is over, Tros fights no more on the earth, nor now Heracles tramples and struggles, Bane of the hydra or slaying the Centaurs oer Pelion driven, Now if the earth no more must be shaken by Titan horsehooves, Since to a pettier framework all things are fitted consenting, Yet will I dwell not in Greece nor favour the nurslings of Pallas. I will await the sons of my loins and the teats of the she-wolf, Consuls browed like the cliffs and plebeians stern of the wolf-brood, Senates of kings and armies of granite that grow by disaster; Such be the nation august that is fit for the favour of Ares! They shall fulfil me and honour my mother, imperial Hera. Then with an iron march they shall move to their world-wide dominion, Through the long centuries rule and at last because earth is impatient, Slowly with haughtiness perish compelled by mortalitys transience Leaving a Roman memory stamped on the ages of weakness. But to his son far-sounding the Father high of the Immortals: So let it be since such is the will in thee, mightiest Ares; Thou shalt till sunset prevail, O war-god, fighting for Troya. So he decreed and the soul of the Warrior sternly consented. He from his seats arose and down on the summits of Ida Flaming through Space in his cloud in a headlong glory descended, Prone like a thunderbolt flaming down from the hand of the Father. Thence in his chariot drawn by living fire and by swiftness, Thundered down to earths plains the mighty impetuous Ares. Far where Deiphobus stern was labouring stark and outnumbered Smiting the Achaian myriads back on the right of the carnage, Over the hosts in his car he stood and darkened the Argives. But in the courts divine the Thunderer spoke to his children: Ares resisting a present Fate for the hope of the future, Gods, has gone forth from us. Choose thou thy paths, O my daughter, More than thy brother assailed by the night that darkens oer creatures. Choose the silence in heaven or choose the struggle mid mortals, Golden joy of the worlds, O thou roseate white Aphrodite. Then with her starry eyes and bosom of bliss from the immortals Glowing and rosy-limbed cried the wonderful white Aphrodite, Drawing her fingers like flowers through the flowing gold of her tresses, Calm, discontented, her perfect mouth like a rose of resistance Chidingly budded gainst Fate, a charm to their senses enamoured. Well do I know thou hast given my world to Hera and Pallas. What though my temples shall stand in Paphos and island Cythera And though the Greek be a priest for my thoughts and a lyre for my singing, Beauty pursuing and light through the figures of grace and of rhythm, Forms shall he mould for mens eyes that the earth has forgotten and mourns for, Mould even the workings of Pallas to commune with Paphias sweetness, Mould Hephaestus craft in the gaze of the gold Aphrodite, Only my form he pursues that I wear for a mortal enchantment, He to whom now thou givest the world, the Ionian, the Hellene, But for my might is unfit which Babylon worshipped and Sidon Palely received from the past in images faint of the gladness Once that was known by the children of men when the thrill of their members Was but the immortal joy of the spirit overflowing their bodies, Wine-cups of Gods desire; but their clay from my natural greatness Falters betrayed to pain, their delight they have turned into ashes. Nor to my peaks shall he rise and the perfect fruit of my promptings, There where the senses swoon but the heart is delivered by rapture: Never my touch can cling to his soul nor reply from his heart-strings. Once could my godhead surprise all the stars with the seas of its rapture; Once the world in its orbit danced to a marvellous rhythm. Men in their limits, gods in their amplitudes answered my calling; Life was moved by a chant of delight that sang from the spaces, Sang from the Soul of the Vast, its rapture clasping its creatures. Sweetly agreed my fire with their soil and their hearts were as altars. Pure were its crests; twas not dulled with earth, twas not lost in the hazes Then when the sons of earth and the daughters of heaven together Met on lone mountain peaks or, linked on wild beach and green meadow, Twining embraced. For I danced on Taygetus peaks and oer Ida Naked and loosing my golden hair like a nimbus of glory Oer a deep-ecstasied earth that was drunk with my roses and whiteness. There was no shrinking nor veil in our old Saturnian kingdoms. Equals were heaven and earth, twin gods on the lap of Dione. Now shall my waning greatness perish and pass out of Nature. For though the Romans, my children, shall grasp at the strength of their mother, They shall not hold the god, but lose in unsatisfied orgies Yet what the earth has kept of my joy, my glory, my puissance, Who shall but drink for a troubled hour in the dusk of the sunset Dregs of my wine Pandemian missing the Uranian sweetness. So shall the night descend on the greatness and rapture of living; Creeds that refuse shall persuade the world to revolt from its mother. Pallas adorers shall loa the me and Heras scorn me for lowness; Beauty shall pass from mens work and delight from their play and their labour; Earth restored to the Cyclops shall shrink from the gold Aphrodite. So shall I live diminished, owned but by beasts in the forest, Birds of the air and the gods in their heavens, but disgraced in the mortal. Then to the discontented rosy-mouthed Aphrodite Zeus replied, the Father divine: O goddess Astarte, What are these thoughts thou hast suffered to wing from thy rose-mouth immortal? Bees that sting and delight are the words from thy lips, Cytherea. Art thou not womb of the world and from thee are the thronging of creatures? And didst thou cease the worlds too would cease and the aeons be ended. Suffer my Greeks; accept who accept thee, O gold Dionaean. They in the works of their craft and their dreams shall enthrone thee for ever, Building thee temples in Paphos and Eryx and island Cythera, Building the fane more enduring and bright of thy golden ideal. Even if natures of men could renounce thee and God do without thee, Rose of love and sea of delight, O my child Aphrodite, Still wouldst thou live in the worship they gave thee protected from fading, Splendidly statued and shrined in mens works and mens thoughts, Cytherea. Pleased and blushing with bliss of her praise and the thought of her empire Answered, as cries a harp in heaven, the gold Aphrodite: Father, I know and I spoke but to hear from another my praises. I am the womb of the world and the cause of this teeming of creatures, And if discouraged I ceased, Gods world would lose heart and would perish. How will you do then without me your works of wisdom and greatness, Hera, queen of heaven, and thou, O my sister Athene? Yes, I shall reign and endure though the pride of my workings be conquered. What though no second Helen find a second Paris, Lost though their glories of form to the earth, though their confident gladness Pass from a race misled and forgetting the sap that it sprang from, They are eternal in man in the worship of beauty and rapture. Ever while earth is embraced by the sun and hot with his kisses And while a Will supernal works through the passions of Nature, Me shall men seek with my light or their darkness, sweetly or crudely, Cold on the ice of the north or warm in the heats of the southland, Slowly enduring my touch or with violence rapidly burning. I am the sweetness of living, I am the touch of the Master. Love shall die bound to my stake like a victim adorned as for bridal, Life shall be bathed in my flames and be purified gold or be ashes. I, Aphrodite, shall move the world for ever and ever. Yet now since most to me, Father of all, the ages arriving, Hostile, rebuke my heart and turn from my joy and my sweetness, I will resist and not yield, nor care what I do, so I conquer. Often I curbed my mood for your sakes and was gracious and kindly, Often I lay at Heras feet and obeyed her commandments Tranquil and proud or oercome by a honeyed and ancient compulsion Fawned on thy pureness and served thy behests, O my sister Pallas. Deep was the love that united us, happy the wrestle and clasping; Love divided, Love united, Love was our mover. But since you now overbear and would scourge me and chain and control me, War I declare on you all, O my Father and brothers and sisters. Henceforth I do my will as the joy in me prompts or the anger. Ranging the earth with my beauty and passion and golden enjoyments All whom I can, I will bind; I will drive at the bliss of my workings, Whether mens hearts are seized by the joy or seized by the torture. Most I will plague your men, your worshippers and in my malice Break up your works with confusion divine, O my mother and sister; Then shall you fume and resist and be helpless and pine with my torments. Yet will I never relent but always be sweet and malignant, Cruel and tyrannous, hurtful and subtle, a charm and a torture. Thou too, O father Zeus, shalt always be vexed with my doings; Called in each moment to judge thou shalt chafe at our cry and our quarrels, Often grope for thy thunderbolt, often frown magisterial Joining in vain thy awful brows oer thy turbulent children. Yet in thy wrath recall my might and my wickedness, Father; Hurt me not then too much lest the world and thyself too should suffer. Save, O my Father, life and grace and the charm of the senses; Love preserve lest the heart of the world grow dulled and forsaken. Smiling her smile immortal of love and of mirth and of malice White Aphrodite arose in her loveliness armed for the conflict. Golden and careless and joyous she went like a wild bird that winging Flits from bough to bough and resumes its chant interrupted. Love where her white feet trod bloomed up like a flower from the spaces; Mad round her touches billowed incessantly laughter and rapture. Thrilled with her feet was the bosom of Space, for her amorous motion Floated, a flower on the wave of her bliss or swayed like the lightning. Rich as a summer fruit and fresh as Springs blossoms her body Gleaming and blushing, veiled and bare and with ecstasy smiting Burned out rosy and white through her happy ambrosial raiment, Golden-tressed and a charm, her bosom a fragrance and peril. So was she framed to the gaze as she came from the seats of the Mighty, So embodied she visits the hearts of men and their dwellings And in her breathing tenement laughs at the eyes that can see her. Swift-footed down to the Troad she hastened thrilling the earth-gods. There with ambrosial secrecy veiled, admiring the heroes Strong and beautiful, might of the warring and glory of armour, Over her son Aeneas she stood, his guard in the battle. But in the courts divine the Thunderer spoke mid his children: Thou for a day and a night and another day and a nightfall, White Aphrodite, prevail; oer thee too the night is extended. She has gone forth who made men like gods in their glory and gladness. Now in the darkness coming all beauty must wane or be tarnished; Joy shall fade and mighty Love grow fickle and fretful; Even as a child that is scared in the night, he shall shake in his chambers. Yet shall a portion be kept for these, Ares and white Aphrodite. Thou whom already thy Pythoness bears not, torn by thy advent, Caverned already who sittest in Delphi knowing thy future, What wilt thou do with the veil and the night, O burning Apollo? Then from the orb of his glory unbearable save to immortals Bright and austere replied the beautiful mystic Apollo: Zeus, I know that I fade; already the night is around me. Dusk she extends her reign and obscures my lightnings with error. Therefore my prophets mislead mens hearts to the ruin appointed, Therefore Cassandra cries in vain to her sire and her brothers. All I endure I foresee and the strength in me waits for its coming; All I foresee I approve; for I know what is willed, O Cronion. Yet is the fierce strength wroth in my breast at the need of approval And for the human race fierce pity works in my bosom; Wroth is my splendid heart with the cowering knowledge of mortals, Wroth are my burning eyes with the purblind vision of reason. I will go forth from your seats and descend to the night among mortals There to guard the flame and the mystery; vast in my moments Rare and sublime to sound like a sea against Time and its limits, Cry like a spirit in pain in the hearts of the priest and the poet, Cry against limits set and disorder sanities bounded. Jealous for truth to the end my might shall prevail and for ever Shatter the moulds that men make to imprison their limitless spirits. Dire, overpowering the brain I shall speak out my oracles splendid. Then in their ages of barren light or lucidity fruitful Whenso the clear gods think they have conquered earth and its mortals, Hidden God from all eyes, they shall wake from their dream and recoiling Still they shall find in their paths the fallen and darkened Apollo. So he spoke, repressing his dreadful might in his bosom, And from their high seats passed, his soul august and resplendent Drawn to the anguish of men and the fierce terrestrial labour. Down he dropped with a roar of light invading the regions, And in his fierce and burning spirit intense and uplifted Sure of his luminous truth and careless for weakness of mortals Flaming oppressed the earth with his dire intolerant beauty. Over the summits descending that slept in the silence of heaven, He through the spaces angrily drew towards the tramp and the shouting Over the speeding of Xanthus and over the pastures of Troya. Clang of his argent bow was the wrath restrained of the mighty, Stern was his pace like Fates; so he came to the warfare of mortals And behind Paris strong and inactive waited Gods moment Knowing what should arrive, nor disturbed like men by their hopings. But in the courts of Heaven Zeus to his brother immortal Turned like a menaced king on his counsellor smiling augustly: Seest thou, Poseidon, this sign that great gods revolting have left us, Follow their hearts and strive with Ananke? Yet though they struggle, Thou and I will do our will with the world, O earth-shaker. Answered to Zeus the besieger of earth, the voice of the waters: This is our strength and our right, for we are the kings and the masters. Too much pity has been and yielding of Heaven to mortals. I will go down with my chariot drawn by my thunder-maned coursers Into the battle and thrust down Troy with my hand to the silence, Even though she cling round the snowy knees of our child Aphrodite Or with Apollos sun take refuge from Night and her shadows. I will not pity her pain, who am ruthless even as my surges. Brother, thou knowest, O Zeus, that I am a king and a trader; For on my paths I receive earths skill and her merchandise gather, Traffic richly in pearls and bear the swift ships on my bosom. Blue are my waves and they call mens hearts to wealth and adventure. Lured by the shifting surges they launch their delight and their treasures Trusting the toil of years to the perilous moments of Ocean. Huge mans soul in its petty frame goes wrestling with Nature Over her vasts and his fragile ships between my horizons Buffeting death in his solitudes labour through swell and through storm-blast Bound for each land with her sons and watched for by eyes in each haven. I from Tyre up to Gades trace on my billows their trade-routes And on my vast and spuming Atlantic suffer their rudders. Carthage and Greece are my children, the marts of the world are my term-posts. Who then deserves the earth if not he who enriches and fosters? But thou hast favoured thy sons, O Zeus; O Hera, earths sceptres Still were denied me and kept for strong Ares and brilliant Apollo. Now all your will shall be done, so you give me the earth for my nations. Gold shall make men like gods and bind their thoughts into oneness; Peace I will build with gold and heaven with the pearls of my caverns. Smiling replied to his brothers craft the mighty Cronion: Lord of the boundless seas, Poseidon, soul of the surges, Well thou knowest that earth shall be seized as a booth for the trader. Rome nor Greece nor France can drive back Carthage for ever. Always each birth of the silence attaining the field and the movement Takes from Time its reign; for it came for its throne and its godhead. So too shall Mammon take and his sons their hour from the ages. Yet is the flame and the dust last end of the silk and the iron, And at their end the king and the prophet shall govern the nations. Even as Troy, so shall Babylon flame up to heaven for the spoiler Wailed by the merchant afar as he sees the red glow from the ocean. Up from the seats of the Mighty the Earth-shaker rose. His raiment Round him purple and dominant rippled and murmured and whispered, Whispered of argosies sunk and the pearls and the Nereids playing, Murmured of azure solitudes, sounded of storm and the death-wail. Even as the march of his waters so was the pace of the sea-god Flowing on endless through Time; with the glittering symbol of empire Crowned were his fatal brows; in his grasp was the wrath of the trident, Tripled force, life-shattering, brutal, imperial, sombre. Resonant, surging, vast in the pomp of his clamorous greatness Proud and victorious he came to his home in the far-spuming waters. Even as a soul from the heights of thought plunges back into living, So he plunged like a rock through the foam; for it falls from a mountain Overpeering the waves in some silence of desolate waters Left to the wind and the sea-gull where Ocean alone with the ages Dreams of the calm of the skies or tosses its spray to the wind-gods, Tosses for ever its foam in the solitude huge of its longings Far from the homes and the noises of men. So the dark-browed Poseidon Came to his coral halls and the sapphire stables of Nereus Ever where champ their bits the harnessed steeds of the Ocean Watched by foam-white girls in the caverns of still Amphitrite. There was his chariot yoked by the Tritons, drawn by his coursers Born of the fleeing sea-spray and shod with the northwind who journey Black like the front of the storm and clothed with their manes as with thunder. This now rose from its depths to the upper tumults of Ocean Bearing the awful brows and the mighty form of the sea-god And from the roar of the surges fast oer the giant margin Came remembering the storm and the swiftness wide towards the Troad. So among men he arrived to the clamorous labours of Ares, Close by the stern Diomedes stood and frowned oer the battle. He for the Trojan slaughter chose for his mace and his sword-edge Iron Tydeus son and the adamant heart of young Pyrrhus. But in the courts divine the Father high of the immortals Turned in his heart to the brilliant offspring born of his musings, She who tranquil observes and judges her father and all things. What shall I say to the thought that is calm in thy breasts, O Athene? Have I not given thee earth for thy portion, throned thee and armoured, Darkened Cypris smile, dimmed Heras son and Latonas? Swift in thy silent ambition, proud in thy radiant sternness, Girl, thou shalt rule with the Greek and the Saxon, the Frank and the Roman. Worker and fighter and builder and thinker, light of the reason, Men shall leave all temples to crowd in thy courts, O Athene. Go then and do my will, prepare mans tribes for their fullness. But with her high clear smile on him answered the mighty Athene, Wisely and soberly, tenderly smiled she chiding her father Even as a mother might rail at her child when he hides and dissembles: Zeus, I see and I am not deceived by thy words in my spirit. We but build forms for thy thought while thou smilest down high oer our toiling; Even as men are we tools for thee, who are thy children and dear ones. All this life is thy sport and thou workst like a boy at his engines Making a toil of the game and a play of the serious labour. Then to that play thou callest us wearing a sombre visage, This consulting, that to our wills confiding, O Ruler; Choosing thy helpers, hastened by those whom thou lurest to oppose thee Guile thou usest with gods as with mortals, scheming, deceiving, And at the wrath and the love thou hast prompted laughest in secret. So we two who are sisters and enemies, lovers and rivals, Fondled and baffled in turn obey thy will and thy cunning, I, thy girl of war, and the rosy-white Aphrodite. Always we served but thy pleasure since our immortal beginnings, Always each other we helped by our play and our wrestlings and quarrels. This too I know that I pass preparing the paths of Apollo And at the end as his sister and slave and bride I must sojourn Rapt to his courts of mystic light and unbearable brilliance. Was I not ever condemned since my birth from the toil of thy musings Seized like a lyre in my body to sob and to laugh out his music, Shake as a leaf in his fierceness and leap as a flame in his splendours! So must I dwell overpowered and so must I labour subjected Robbed of my loneliness pure and coerced in my radiant freedom, Now whose clearness and pride are the sovereign joy of thy creatures. Such the reward that thou keepst for my labour obedient always. Yet I work and I do thy will, for tis mine, O my father. Proud of her ruthless lust of thought and action and battle, Swift-footed rose the daughter of Zeus from her sessions immortal: Breasts of the morning unveiled in a purity awful and candid, Head of the mighty Dawn, the goddess Pallas Athene! Strong and rapacious she swooped on the world as her prey and her booty Down from the courts of the Mighty descending, darting on Ida. Dire she descended, a god in her reason, a child in her longings, Joy and woe to the world that is given to the whims of the child-god Greedy for rule and play and the minds of men and their doings! So with her aegis scattering light oer the heads of the nations Shining-eyed in her boyish beauty severe and attractive Came to the fields of the Troad, came to the fateful warfare, Veiled, the goddess calm and pure in her luminous raiment Zoned with beauty and strength. Rejoicing, spurring the fighters Close oer Odysseus she stood and clear-eyed governed the battle. Zeus to Hephaestus next, the Cyclopean toiler Turned, Hephaestus the strong-souled, priest and king and a bond-slave, Servant of men in their homes and their workshops, servant of Nature, He who has built these worlds and kindles the fire for a mortal. Thou, my son, art obedient always. Wisdom is with thee, Therefore thou knowst and obeyest. Submission is wisdom and knowledge; He who is blind revolts and he who is limited struggles: Strife is not for the infinite; wisdom observes to accomplish. Troy and her sons and her works are thy food today, O Hephaestus. And to his father the Toiler answered, the silent Seer: Yes, I obey thee, my Father, and That which than thou is more mighty; Even as thou obeyest by rule, so I by my labour. Now must I heap the furnace, now must I toil at the smithy, I who have flamed on the altar of sacrifice helping the sages. I am the Cyclops, the lamester, who once was pure and a high-priest. Holy the pomp of my flames ascendant from pyre and from altar Robed mens souls for their heavens and my smoke was a pillar to Nature. Though I have burned in the sight of the sage and the heart of the hero, Now is no nobler hymn for my ear than the clanging of metal, Breath of human greed and the dolorous pant of the engines. Still I repine not, but toil; for to toil I was yoked by my Maker. I am your servant, O Gods, and his of whom you are servants. But to the toiler Zeus replied, to the servant of creatures: What is the thought thou hast uttered betrayed by thy speech, O Hephaestus? True is it earth shall grow as a smithy, the smoke of the furnace Fill mens eyes and their souls shall be stunned with the clang of the hammers; Yet in the end there is rest on the peak of a labour accomplished. Nor shall the might of the thinker be quelled by that iron oppression, Nor shall the soul of the warrior despair in the darkness triumphant; For when the night shall be deepest, dawn shall increase on the mountains And in the heart of the worst the best shall be born by my wisdom. Pallas thy sister shall guard mans knowledge fighting the earth-smoke. Thou too art mighty to live through the clamour even as Apollo. Work then, endure; expect from the Silence an end and thy wages. So King Hephaestus arose and passed from the courts of his father; Down upon earth he came with his lame omnipotent motion; And with uneven steps absorbed and silent the Master Worked employed mid the wheels of the cars as a smith in his smithy, But it was death and bale that he forged, not the bronze and the iron. Stark, like a fire obscured by its smoke, through the spear-casts he laboured Helping Ajax war and the Theban and Phocian fighters. Zeus to his grandiose helper next, who proved and unmoving, Calm in her greatness waited the mighty comm and of her husband: Hera, sister and spouse, what my will is thou knowest, O consort. One are our blood and our hearts, nor the thought for the words of the speaker Waits, but each other we know and ourselves and the Vast and the heavens, Life and all between and all beyond and the ages. That which Space not knows nor Time, we have known, O my sister. Therefore our souls are one soul and our minds become mirrors of oneness. Go then and do my will, O thou mighty one, burning down Troya. Silent she rose from the seats of the Blissful, Hera majestic, And with her flowing garment and mystical zone through the spaces Haloed came like the moon on an evening of luminous silence Down upon Ida descending, a snow-white swan on the greenness, Down upon Ida the mystic haunted by footsteps immortal Ever since out of the Ocean it rose and lived gazing towards heaven. There on a peak of the mountains alone with the sea and the azure Voiceless and mighty she paused like a thought on the summits of being Clasped by all heaven; the winds at play in her gust-scattered raiment Sported insulting her gracious strength with their turbulent sweetness, Played with their mother and queen; but she stood absorbed and unheeding, Mute, with her sandalled foot for a moment thrilling the grasses, Dumbly adored by a soul in the mountains, a thought in the rivers, Roared to loud by her lions. The voice of the cataracts falling Entered her soul profound and it heard eternitys rumour. Silent its gaze immense contained the wheeling of aeons. Huge-winged through Time flew her thought and its grandiose vast revolutions Turned and returned. So musing her timeless creative spirit, Master of Time, its instrument, grieflessly hastening forward Parted with greatnesses dead and summoned new strengths from their stables; Maned they came to her call and filled with their pacings the future. Calm, with the vision satisfied, thrilled by the grandeurs within her, Down in a billow of whiteness and gold and delicate raiment Gliding the daughter of Heaven came to the earth that received her Glad of the tread divine and bright with her more than with sunbeams. King Agamemnon she found and smiling on Spartas levies Mixed unseen with the far-glinting spears of haughty Mycenae. Then to the Mighty who tranquil abode and august in his regions Zeus, while his gaze over many forms and high-seated godheads Passed like a swift-fleeing eagle over the peaks and the glaciers When to his eyrie he flies alone through the vastness and silence: Artemis, child of my loins and you, O legioned immortals, All you have heard. Descend, O ye gods, to your sovereign stations, Labour rejoicing whose task is joy and your bliss is creation; Shrink from no act that Necessity asks from your luminous natures. Thee I have given no part in the years that come, O my daughter, Huntress swift of the worlds who with purity all things pursuest. Yet not less is thy portion intended than theirs who oerpass thee: Helped are the souls that wait more than strengths soon fulfilled and exhausted. Archeress, brilliance, wait thine hour from the speed of the ages. So they departed, Artemis leading lightning-tasselled. Ancient Themis remained and awful Dis and Ananke. Then mid these last of the gods who shall stand when all others have perished, Zeus to the Silence obscure under iron brows of that goddess, Griefless, unveiled was her visage, dire and unmoved and eternal: Thou and I, O Dis, remain and our sister Ananke. That which the joyous hearts of our children, radiant heaven-moths Flitting mid flowers of sense for the honey of thought have not captured, That which Poseidon forgets mid the pomp and the roar of his waters, We three keep in our hearts. By the Light that I watch for unsleeping, By thy tremendous consent to the silence and darkness, O Hades, By her delight renounced and the prayers and the worship of mortals Making herself as an engine of God without bowels or vision, Yet in that engine are only heart-beats, yet is her riddle Only Love that is veiled and pity that suffers and slaughters, We three are free from ourselves, O Dis, and free from each other. Do then, O King of the Night, observe then with Time for thy servant Not my behest, but What she and thou and I are for ever. Mute the Darkness sat like a soul unmoved through the aeons, Then came a voice from the silence of Dis, from the night there came wisdom. Yes, I have chosen and that which I chose I endure, O Cronion, Though to the courts of the gods I come as a threat and a shadow, Even though none to their counsels call me, none to their pastime, None companions me willingly; even thy daughter, my consort, Trembling whom once from our sister Demeter I plucked like a blossom Torn from Sicilian fields, while Fate reluctant, consenting, Bowed her head, lives but by her gasps of the sun and the azure; Stretched are her hands to the light and she seeks for the clasp of her mother. I, I am Night and her reign and that of which Night is a symbol. All to me comes, even thou shalt come to me, brilliant Cronion. All here exists by me whom all walk fearing and shunning; He who shuns not, He am I and thou and Ananke. All things I take to my bosom that Life may be swift in her voyage; For out of death is Life and not by birth and her motions And behind Night is light and not in the sun and his splendours. Troy to the Night I will gather a wreath for my shadows, O grower. So in his arrogance dire the vast invincible Death-god Triumphing passed out of heaven with Themis and silent Ananke. Zeus alone in the spheres of his bliss, in his kingdoms of brilliance Sat divine and alarmed; for even the gods in their heavens Scarce shall live who have gazed on the unveiled face of Ananke, Heard the accents dire of the Darkness that waits for the ages. Awful and dull grew his eyes and mighty and still grew his members. Back from his nature he drew to the passionless peaks of the spirit, Throned where it dwells for ever uplifted and silent and changeless Far beyond living and death, beyond Nature and ending of Nature. There for a while he dwelt veiled, protected from Dis and his greatness; Then to the works of the world he returned and the joy of his musings. Life and the blaze of the mighty soul that he was of Gods making Dawned again in the heavenly eyes and the majestied semblance. Comforted heaven he beheld, to the green of the earth was attracted. But through this Space unreal, but through these worlds that are shadows Went the awful Three. None saw them pass, none felt them. Only in the heavens was a tread as of death, in the air was a winter, Earth oppressed moaned long like a woman striving with anguish. Ida saw them not, but her grim lions cowered in their caverns, Ceased for a while on her slopes the eternal laughter of fountains. Over the ancient ramparts of Dardanus high-roofed city Darkening her victor domes and her gardens of life and its sweetness Silent they came. Unseen and unheard was the dreadful arrival. Troy and her gods dreamed secure in the moment flattered by sunlight. Dim to the citadel high they arrived and their silence invaded Pallas marble shrine where stern and white in her beauty, Armed on her pedestal, trampling the prostrate image of darkness Mighty Athenes statue guarded imperial Troya. Dim and vast they entered in. Then through all the great city Huge a rushing sound was heard from her gardens and places And in their musings her seers as they strove with night and with error And in the fane of Apollo Laocoon torn by his visions Heard aghast the voice of Troys deities fleeing from Troya, Saw the flaming lords of her households drive in a death-rout Forth from her ancient halls and their noble familiar sessions. Ghosts of her splendid centuries wailed on the wings of the doom-blast. Moaning the Dryads fled and her Naiads passed from Scamander Leaving the world to deities dumb of the clod and the earth-smoke, And from their tombs and their shrines the shadowy Ancestors faded. Filled was the air with their troops and the sound of a vast lamentation. Wailing they went, lamenting mortalitys ages of greatness, Ruthless Anankes deeds and the mortal conquests of Hades. Then in the fane Palladian the shuddering priests of Athene Entered the darkened shrine and saw on the suffering marble Shattered Athenes mighty statue prostrate as conquered, But on its pedestal rose oer the unhurt image of darkness Awful shapes, a Trinity dim and dire unto mortals. Dumb they fell down on the earth and the life-breath was slain in their bosoms. And in the noon there was night. And Apollo passed out of Troya. *** ~ Sri Aurobindo, 8 - The Book of the Gods

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