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object:Do you not know
class:Question

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now begins generated list of local instances, definitions, quotes, instances in chapters, wordnet info if available and instances among weblinks


OBJECT INSTANCES [0] - TOPICS - AUTHORS - BOOKS - CHAPTERS - CLASSES - SEE ALSO - SIMILAR TITLES

TOPICS
SEE ALSO


AUTH

BOOKS
The_Republic

IN CHAPTERS TITLE

IN CHAPTERS CLASSNAME

IN CHAPTERS TEXT
1.002_-_The_Heifer
1.005_-_The_Table
1.00_-_The_way_of_what_is_to_come
1.022_-_The_Pilgrimage
1.04_-_On_Knowledge_of_the_Future_World.
1.08_-_The_Supreme_Discovery
1.1.04_-_The_Self_or_Atman
1.439
1.550_-_1.600_Talks
1954-10-20_-_Stand_back_-_Asking_questions_to_Mother_-_Seeing_images_in_meditation_-_Berlioz_-Music_-_Mothers_organ_music_-_Destiny
1.rb_-_Paracelsus_-_Part_V_-_Paracelsus_Attains
1.rt_-_The_Little_Big_Man
1.wby_-_A_Dramatic_Poem
1.wby_-_The_Shadowy_Waters_-_The_Shadowy_Waters
1.whitman_-_Song_of_Myself
1.whitman_-_Song_Of_Myself-_XXV
2.03_-_THE_ENIGMA_OF_BOLOGNA
2.2.01_-_The_Outer_Being_and_the_Inner_Being
3.3.2_-_Doctors_and_Medicines
4.3.1_-_The_Hostile_Forces_and_the_Difficulties_of_Yoga
Cratylus
Epistle_to_the_Romans
Gorgias
The_First_Epistle_of_Paul_to_the_Corinthians
The_Gospel_According_to_John

PRIMARY CLASS

Question
SIMILAR TITLES
Do you not know

DEFINITIONS



QUOTES [3 / 3 - 91 / 91]


KEYS (10k)

   2 Anonymous
   1 The Mother

NEW FULL DB (2.4M)

   31 Anonymous
   3 Friedrich Nietzsche
   3 Bram Stoker
   2 Tertullian
   2 Terry Pratchett
   2 T E Lawrence
   2 S ren Kierkegaard
   2 Sarah Young
   2 R C Sproul
   2 Liz Fenton
   2 Jiddu Krishnamurti
   2 Gustave Flaubert
   2 C S Lewis
   2 Agatha Christie

1:Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians, 3:16,
2:Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own
   ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians, 6:19 ESV,
3:The Supreme Discovery
   IF WE want to progress integrally, we must build within our conscious being a strong and pure mental synthesis which can serve us as a protection against temptations from outside, as a landmark to prevent us from going astray, as a beacon to light our way across the moving ocean of life.
   Each individual should build up this mental synthesis according to his own tendencies and affinities and aspirations. But if we want it to be truly living and luminous, it must be centred on the idea that is the intellectual representation symbolising That which is at the centre of our being, That which is our life and our light.
   This idea, expressed in sublime words, has been taught in various forms by all the great Instructors in all lands and all ages.
   The Self of each one and the great universal Self are one. Since all that is exists from all eternity in its essence and principle, why make a distinction between the being and its origin, between ourselves and what we place at the beginning?
   The ancient traditions rightly said:
   "Our origin and ourselves, our God and ourselves are one."
   And this oneness should not be understood merely as a more or less close and intimate relationship of union, but as a true identity.
   Thus, when a man who seeks the Divine attempts to reascend by degrees towards the inaccessible, he forgets that all his knowledge and all his intuition cannot take him one step forward in this infinite; neither does he know that what he wants to attain, what he believes to be so far from him, is within him.
   For how could he know anything of the origin until he becomes conscious of this origin in himself?
   It is by understanding himself, by learning to know himself, that he can make the supreme discovery and cry out in wonder like the patriarch in the Bible, "The house of God is here and I knew it not."
   That is why we must express that sublime thought, creatrix of the material worlds, and make known to all the word that fills the heavens and the earth, "I am in all things and all beings."When all shall know this, the promised day of great transfigurations will be at hand. When in each atom of Matter men shall recognise the indwelling thought of God, when in each living creature they shall perceive some hint of a gesture of God, when each man can see God in his brother, then dawn will break, dispelling the darkness, the falsehood, the ignorance, the error and suffering that weigh upon all Nature. For, "all Nature suffers and laments as she awaits the revelation of the Sons of God."
   This indeed is the central thought epitomising all others, the thought which should be ever present to our remembrance as the sun that illumines all life.
   That is why I remind you of it today. For if we follow our path bearing this thought in our hearts like the rarest jewel, the most precious treasure, if we allow it to do its work of illumination and transfiguration within us, we shall know that it lives in the centre of all beings and all things, and in it we shall feel the marvellous oneness of the universe.
   Then we shall understand the vanity and childishness of our meagre satisfactions, our foolish quarrels, our petty passions, our blind indignations. We shall see the dissolution of our little faults, the crumbling of the last entrenchments of our limited personality and our obtuse egoism. We shall feel ourselves being swept along by this sublime current of true spirituality which will deliver us from our narrow limits and bounds.
   The individual Self and the universal Self are one; in every world, in every being, in every thing, in every atom is the Divine Presence, and man's mission is to manifest it.
   In order to do that, he must become conscious of this Divine Presence within him. Some individuals must undergo a real apprenticeship in order to achieve this: their egoistic being is too all-absorbing, too rigid, too conservative, and their struggles against it are long and painful. Others, on the contrary, who are more impersonal, more plastic, more spiritualised, come easily into contact with the inexhaustible divine source of their being.But let us not forget that they too should devote themselves daily, constantly, to a methodical effort of adaptation and transformation, so that nothing within them may ever again obscure the radiance of that pure light.
   But how greatly the standpoint changes once we attain this deeper consciousness! How understanding widens, how compassion grows!
   On this a sage has said:
   "I would like each one of us to come to the point where he perceives the inner God who dwells even in the vilest of human beings; instead of condemning him we would say, 'Arise, O resplendent Being, thou who art ever pure, who knowest neither birth nor death; arise, Almighty One, and manifest thy nature.'"
   Let us live by this beautiful utterance and we shall see everything around us transformed as if by miracle.
   This is the attitude of true, conscious and discerning love, the love which knows how to see behind appearances, understand in spite of words, and which, amid all obstacles, is in constant communion with the depths.
   What value have our impulses and our desires, our anguish and our violence, our sufferings and our struggles, all these inner vicissitudes unduly dramatised by our unruly imagination - what value do they have before this great, this sublime and divine love bending over us from the innermost depths of our being, bearing with our weaknesses, rectifying our errors, healing our wounds, bathing our whole being with its regenerating streams?
   For the inner Godhead never imposes herself, she neither demands nor threatens; she offers and gives herself, conceals and forgets herself in the heart of all beings and things; she never accuses, she neither judges nor curses nor condemns, but works unceasingly to perfect without constraint, to mend without reproach, to encourage without impatience, to enrich each one with all the wealth he can receive; she is the mother whose love bears fruit and nourishes, guards and protects, counsels and consoles; because she understands everything, she can endure everything, excuse and pardon everything, hope and prepare for everything; bearing everything within herself, she owns nothing that does not belong to all, and because she reigns over all, she is the servant of all; that is why all, great and small, who want to be kings with her and gods in her, become, like her, not despots but servitors among their brethren.
   How beautiful is this humble role of servant, the role of all who have been revealers and heralds of the God who is within all, of the Divine Love that animates all things....
   And until we can follow their example and become true servants even as they, let us allow ourselves to be penetrated and transformed by this Divine Love; let us offer Him, without reserve, this marvellous instrument, our physical organism. He shall make it yield its utmost on every plane of activity.
   To achieve this total self-consecration, all means are good, all methods have their value. The one thing needful is to persevere in our will to attain this goal. For then everything we study, every action we perform, every human being we meet, all come to bring us an indication, a help, a light to guide us on the path.
   Before I close, I shall add a few pages for those who have already made apparently fruitless efforts, for those who have encountered the pitfalls on the way and seen the measure of their weakness, for those who are in danger of losing their self-confidence and courage. These pages, intended to rekindle hope in the hearts of those who suffer, were written by a spiritual worker at a time when ordeals of every kind were sweeping down on him like purifying flames.
   You who are weary, downcast and bruised, you who fall, who think perhaps that you are defeated, hear the voice of a friend. He knows your sorrows, he has shared them, he has suffered like you from the ills of the earth; like you he has crossed many deserts under the burden of the day, he has known thirst and hunger, solitude and abandonment, and the cruellest of all wants, the destitution of the heart. Alas! he has known too the hours of doubt, the errors, the faults, the failings, every weakness.
   But he tells you: Courage! Hearken to the lesson that the rising sun brings to the earth with its first rays each morning. It is a lesson of hope, a message of solace.
   You who weep, who suffer and tremble, who dare not expect an end to your ills, an issue to your pangs, behold: there is no night without dawn and the day is about to break when darkness is thickest; there is no mist that the sun does not dispel, no cloud that it does not gild, no tear that it will not dry one day, no storm that is not followed by its shining triumphant bow; there is no snow that it does not melt, nor winter that it does not change into radiant spring.
   And for you too, there is no affliction which does not bring its measure of glory, no distress which cannot be transformed into joy, nor defeat into victory, nor downfall into higher ascension, nor solitude into radiating centre of life, nor discord into harmony - sometimes it is a misunderstanding between two minds that compels two hearts to open to mutual communion; lastly, there is no infinite weakness that cannot be changed into strength. And it is even in supreme weakness that almightiness chooses to reveal itself!
   Listen, my little child, you who today feel so broken, so fallen perhaps, who have nothing left, nothing to cover your misery and foster your pride: never before have you been so great! How close to the summits is he who awakens in the depths, for the deeper the abyss, the more the heights reveal themselves!
   Do you not know this, that the most sublime forces of the vasts seek to array themselves in the most opaque veils of Matter? Oh, the sublime nuptials of sovereign love with the obscurest plasticities, of the shadow's yearning with the most royal light!
   If ordeal or fault has cast you down, if you have sunk into the nether depths of suffering, do not grieve - for there indeed the divine love and the supreme blessing can reach you! Because you have passed through the crucible of purifying sorrows, the glorious ascents are yours.
   You are in the wilderness: then listen to the voices of the silence. The clamour of flattering words and outer applause has gladdened your ears, but the voices of the silence will gladden your soul and awaken within you the echo of the depths, the chant of divine harmonies!
   You are walking in the depths of night: then gather the priceless treasures of the night. In bright sunshine, the ways of intelligence are lit, but in the white luminosities of the night lie the hidden paths of perfection, the secret of spiritual riches.
   You are being stripped of everything: that is the way towards plenitude. When you have nothing left, everything will be given to you. Because for those who are sincere and true, from the worst always comes the best.
   Every grain that is sown in the earth produces a thousand. Every wing-beat of sorrow can be a soaring towards glory.
   And when the adversary pursues man relentlessly, everything he does to destroy him only makes him greater.
   Hear the story of the worlds, look: the great enemy seems to triumph. He casts the beings of light into the night, and the night is filled with stars. He rages against the cosmic working, he assails the integrity of the empire of the sphere, shatters its harmony, divides and subdivides it, scatters its dust to the four winds of infinity, and lo! the dust is changed into a golden seed, fertilising the infinite and peopling it with worlds which now gravitate around their eternal centre in the larger orbit of space - so that even division creates a richer and deeper unity, and by multiplying the surfaces of the material universe, enlarges the empire that it set out to destroy.
   Beautiful indeed was the song of the primordial sphere cradled in the bosom of immensity, but how much more beautiful and triumphant is the symphony of the constellations, the music of the spheres, the immense choir that fills the heavens with an eternal hymn of victory!
   Hear again: no state was ever more precarious than that of man when he was separated on earth from his divine origin. Above him stretched the hostile borders of the usurper, and at his horizon's gates watched jailers armed with flaming swords. Then, since he could climb no more to the source of life, the source arose within him; since he could no more receive the light from above, the light shone forth at the very centre of his being; since he could commune no more with the transcendent love, that love offered itself in a holocaust and chose each terrestrial being, each human self as its dwelling-place and sanctuary.
   That is how, in this despised and desolate but fruitful and blessed Matter, each atom contains a divine thought, each being carries within him the Divine Inhabitant. And if no being in all the universe is as frail as man, neither is any as divine as he!
   In truth, in truth, in humiliation lies the cradle of glory! 28 April 1912 ~ The Mother, Words Of Long Ago, The Supreme Discovery,
1:Do you not know how uncontrolled and unreliable the average human being is in all that concerns sexual life? ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove
2:Do you not know how bashful friendship is? Friends - comrades - do not look at each other. Friendship would be ashamed. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove

*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***

1:Do you not know that there are souls constantly tormented? ~ Gustave Flaubert,
2:Do you not know I am a woman? when I think, I must speak. ~ William Shakespeare,
3:Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken? ~ Terry Pratchett,
4:6[†]  f Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that  g a little leaven leavens the whole lump? ~ Anonymous,
5:How do you not know where the heart is? Especially considering how many of them you've broken? ~ Richelle Mead,
6:Do you not know...that a child badly taught is farther from being wise than one not taught at all? ~ Jean Jacques Rousseau,
7:Do you not know how uncontrolled and unreliable the average human being is in all that concerns sexual life? ~ Sigmund Freud,
8:Do you not know how bashful friendship is? Friends - comrades - do not look at each other. Friendship would be ashamed. ~ C S Lewis,
9:Do you not know how bashful friendship is? Friends - comrades - do not look at each other. Friendship would be ashamed... ~ C S Lewis,
10:Do you not know that the God of the Old Testament orders the Jews to consume and enslave the peoples of the earth? ~ Julius Streicher,
11:Do you not know that if you offer yourself to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of that one you obey? Romans 6:16 ~ Beth Moore,
12:How do you not know the nature of the hellequin’s hunt? Have you sprouted from the earth wholly formed, like some miraculous cabbage? ~ Robin LaFevers,
13:Why, do you not know, then, that the origin of all human evils, and of baseness, and cowardice, is not death, but rather the fear of death? ~ Epictetus,
14:there is no courage in being fearless. Do you not know that? A person who knows fear and yet can still think of others, well, he be a brave man. ~ Paula Brackston,
15:It is the eve of St. George's Day. Do you not know that tonight, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway? ~ Bram Stoker,
16:Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own. —1 CORINTHIANS 6:19 ~ Sarah Young,
17:It is the eve of St. George’s Day. Do you not know that to-night, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway? ~ Bram Stoker,
18:Do you not know? No Sicilian will wear underwear for five months. It is just too hot. Oh, the day in September when you have to put on your underwear! ~ Philip Hensher,
19:Do you not know that there is nothing the eye can see that can make it shed the tears of blood? Do you not know that there is no loss we cannot overcome? ~ Chigozie Obioma,
20:Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own
   ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians 6:19 ESV,
21:The discipline of suffering, of great suffering - do you not know that it is this discipline alone that has produced all the elevations of humanity so far? ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
22:Adulteresses,* do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever, therefore, wants to be a friend of the world is making himself an enemy of God. ~ Anonymous,
23:do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God?i Do not be deceived:j Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterersk nor men who have sex with men ~ Anonymous,
24:realize you can love a person and not know them at all. To start to question everyone and everything in your life. What else do you not know? Who else is keeping things from you? ~ Liz Fenton,
25:To realize you can love a person and not know them at all. To start to question everyone and everything in your life. What else do you not know? Who else is keeping things from you? ~ Liz Fenton,
26:You surprise me, Hastings. Do you not know that all celebrated detectives have brothers who would be even more celebrated than they are were it not for constitutional indolence? ~ Agatha Christie,
27:Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple. ~ Anonymous,
28:Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. ~ Anonymous,
29:19Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. ~ Anonymous,
30:28 ‡ Do you not know? Have you not heard?† The LORD is the everlasting† God, the Creator† of the ends of the earth.† He will not grow tired or weary,† and his understanding no one can fathom.† ~ Anonymous,
31:Do you not know that you [2] are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? 17If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For  d God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple. ~ Anonymous,
32:Do you not know that every religion in the world has declared every other religion a fraud? Yes, we all know it. That is the time all religions tell the truth - each of the other. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll,
33:16 c Do you not know that you [2] are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? 17If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For  d God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple. ~ Anonymous,
34:Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. —Isaiah 40:28 ~ Colleen Coble,
35:Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for the temple of God, which you are, is holy. ~ Anonymous,
36:Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. ~ Anonymous,
37:Do you not know, my friend, that each one of us is a dark mystery, a maze of conflicting passions and desires and aptitudes? Mais oui, c’est vrai. One makes one’s little judgments—but nine times out of ten one is wrong. ~ Agatha Christie,
38:Do you not know that there comes a midnight hour when every one has to throw off his mask? Do you believe that life will always let itself be mocked? Do you think you can slip away a little before midnight to avoid this? ~ S ren Kierkegaard,
39:Do you not know this, that from time immemorial, Since man was first set on earth, The joy of the wicked has been brief?… Though evil is sweet to his taste, His food in his bowels turns to venom within him. (20:4–5, 12–14) In ~ Harold S Kushner,
40:What!” said he. “Do you not know that there are souls constantly tormented? They need by turns to dream and to act, the purest passions and the most turbulent joys, and thus they fling themselves into all sorts of fantasies, of follies. ~ Gustave Flaubert,
41:Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Cor. 6:19-20). ~ Beni Johnson,
42:You are an impertinent wench! Do you not know the Black Lion eats three girls such as you each day afore dinner?” Oblivious to the staring people around them, she put a finger on his lower lip. “I do not find that a horrible way to die at all,” she said gently. ~ Jude Deveraux,
43:Do you not know that when you love someone, you love the whole of mankind? Do you not know how dangerous it is to love man? Then, there is no barrier, no nationality; then, there is no craving for power and position, and things assume their values. Such a man is a danger to society. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti,
44:When you say ‘he has seen the light’ you sound as if you mean ‘corrupted,’ ” he said. “Something like that, yes. Different worlds, Commander. Down here, it would be unwise to trust your metaphors. To see the light is to be blinded. Do you not know that in the darkness, the eyes open wider? ~ Terry Pratchett,
45:Do you not know that God dwells in light inaccessible? We weak and ignorant creatures want to probe and understand the incomprehensible majesty of the unfathomable light of the wonder of God. We approach; we prepare ourselves to approach. What wonder then that his majesty overpowers us and shatters!”13 ~ R C Sproul,
46:Do you not know that God dwells in light inaccessible? We weak and ignorant creatures want to probe and understand the incomprehensible majesty of the unfathomable light of the wonder of God. We approach; we prepare ourselves to approach. What wonder then that his majesty overpowers us and shatters!"'- ~ R C Sproul,
47:do you not know that the unrighteous [2] will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, [3] 10nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. ~ Anonymous,
48:9Or do you not know that the unrighteous [2] will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived:  x neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, [3] 10nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. ~ Anonymous,
49:9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous [16] will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, [17] 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. ~ Anonymous,
50:Clara,” he says, “why do you turn away from me?” I do not reply. He takes my arm and spins me around to face him again. “Do you not know?” Gently, he lifts my chin and forces me to look into his sparkling eyes. Suddenly, I do know. He does not need to say the words, but (miracle of miracles!) he does. “I love you, Clara. ~ Carrie Anne Noble,
51:21 ‡ Do you not know? Have you not heard?† Has it not been told† you from the beginning?† Have you not understood† since the earth was founded?† 22 ‡ He sits enthroned† above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers.† He stretches out the heavens† like a canopy,† and spreads them out like a tent† to live in.† ~ Anonymous,
52:Even when the angel asks him specifically, “Do you not know what these are?” Zechariah answers with humility, “No, my lord.” Had Zechariah not responded with humility and openness, he probably would not have gained much from the whole experience. People who think they know it all already cut themselves off from learning anything new. ~ James W Goll,
53:2Or do you not know that  s the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? 3Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! 4So if you have such cases,  t why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? 5 u I ~ Anonymous,
54:Do you not know that God entrusted you with that money (all above what buys necessities for your families) to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to help the stranger, the widow, the fatherless; and, indeed, as far as it will go, to relieve the wants of all mankind? How can you, how dare you, defraud the Lord, by applying it to any other purpose? ~ John Wesley,
55:and adulteresses! Do you not know that †friendship with the world is enmity with God? †Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, †“The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”? 6But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: †“God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble. ~ Anonymous,
56:Do you not know the cause and reason of their coming?” They did not, the people replied. “They adore a certain Covetous Deity,” Hatuey explained, “whose cravings are not to be satisfied by a few moderate offerings, but they may answer his Adoration and Worship, demand many unreasonable things of us, and use their utmost endeavors to subjugate and afterwards murder us. ~ Peter Manseau,
57:6:1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. ~ Anonymous,
58:9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals,* nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. ~ Anonymous,
59:9Or do you not know that the unrighteous [2] will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived:  x neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, [3] 10nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11And  y such were some of you. But  z you were washed,  a you were sanctified,  b you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. ~ Anonymous,
60:In a similar way, General Robert E. Lee once spoke to the president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, in the most glowing terms about a certain officer under his command. Another officer in attendance was astonished. “General,” he said, “do you not know that the man of whom you speak so highly is one of your bitterest enemies who misses no opportunity to malign you?” “Yes,” replied General Lee, “but the president asked my opinion of him; he did not ask for his opinion of me. ~ Dale Carnegie,
61:We were eating lunch when a chicken walked out of the woods.
“Anna, look behind you.”
She turned around. “What the heck?”
We watched as the chicken came closer. It pecked the ground, not in any kind of hurry.
“There was one more after all,” I said.
“Yeah, the stupid one,” Anna pointed out. “Although it’s the last one standing, so it’s done something right.”
It came right up to Anna and she said, “Oh, hi. Do you not know what we did to the rest of your kind? ~ Tracey Garvis Graves,
62:Do you not know that you are Eve? The judgment of God upon this sex lives on in this age; therefore, necessarily the guilt should live on also. You are the gateway of the devil; you are the one who unseals the curse of that tree, and you are the first one to turn your back on the divine law; you are the one who persuaded him whom the devil was not capable of corrupting; you easily destroyed the image of God, Adam. Because of what you deserve, that is, death, even the Son of God had to die. ~ Tertullian,
63:Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. —ISAIAH 40:28–31 ~ Sarah Young,
64:The discipline of suffering, of great suffering- do you not know that only this discipline has created all enhancements of man so far? That tension of the soul in unhappiness which cultivates its strength, its shudders face to face with great ruin, its inventiveness and courage in enduring, preserving, interpreting, and exploiting suffering, and whatever has been granted to it of profundity, secret, mask, spirit, cunning, greatness- was it not granted to it through suffering, through the discipline of great suffering? ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
65:The discipline of suffering, of great suffering – do you not know that only this discipline has created all enhancements of man so far? That tension of the soul in unhappiness which cultivates its strength, its shudders face to face with great ruin, its inventiveness and courage in enduring, preserving, interpreting, and exploiting suffering, and whatever has been granted to it of profundity, secret, mask, spirit, cunning, greatness — was it not granted to it through suffering, through the discipline of great suffering? ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
66:In pain shall you bring forth children, woman, and you shall turn to your husband and he shall rule over you. And do you not know that you are Eve? God's sentence hangs still over all your sex and His punishment weighs down upon you. You are the devil's gateway; you are she who first violated the forbidden tree and broke the law of God. It was you who coaxed your way around him whom the devil had not the force to attack. With what ease you shattered that image of God: Man! Because of the death you merited, even the Son of God had to die... Woman, you are the gate to hell. ~ Tertullian,
67:The Howeitat spread out along the cliffs to return the peasants' fire. This manner of going displeased Auda, the old lion, who raged that a mercenary village folk should dare to resist their secular masters, the Abu Tayi. So he jerked his halter, cantered his mare down the path, and rode out plain to view beneath the easternmost houses of the village. There he reined in, and shook a hand at them, booming in his wonderful voice: 'Dogs, do you not know Auda?' When they realized it was that implacable son of war their hearts failed them, and an hour later Sherif Nasir in the town-house was sipping tea with his guest the Turkish Governor, trying to console him for the sudden change of fortune. ~ T E Lawrence,
68:In Romans 6:1ff., in answer to charges that his gospel encourages moral indifference, Paul insists that believers, the justified, live to Christ and do not give themselves over to sin. This is because they died with Christ to sin and rose again to new life in his resurrection. Not only did Christ die and rise again for them, but they died and rose with him. Union with Christ is the foundational basis for sanctification and the dynamic force that empowers it. As Paul says, “Do you not know that as many as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death; we were buried with him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father so we too should live in newness of life” (6:3–4). ~ Anonymous,
69:It is the eve of St. George’s Day. Do you not know that to-night, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway? Do you know where you are going, and what you are going to?” She was in such evident distress that I tried to comfort her, but without effect. Finally she went down on her knees and implored me not to go; at least to wait a day or two before starting. It was all very ridiculous but I did not feel comfortable. However, there was business to be done, and I could allow nothing to interfere with it. I therefore tried to raise her up, and said, as gravely as I could, that I thanked her, but my duty was imperative, and that I must go. She then rose and dried her eyes, and taking a crucifix from her neck offered it to me. ~ Bram Stoker,
70:Do you not know that there comes a midnight hour when every one has to throw off his mask? Do you believe that life will always let itself be mocked? Do you think you can slip away a little before midnight in order to avoid this? Or are you not terrified by it? I have seen men in real life who so long deceived others that at last their true nature could not reveal itself;... In every man there is something which to a certain degree prevents him from becoming perfectly transparent to himself; and this may be the case in so high a degree, he may be so inexplicably woven into relationships of life which extend far beyond himself that he almost cannot reveal himself. But he who cannot reveal himself cannot love, and he who cannot love is the most unhappy man of all. ~ S ren Kierkegaard,
71:1 Corinthians 9:19-24
19 - For though I am free from all, I made myself a servant to all in order to win more.
20 - and to the Jew I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Torah (Law), as under Torah, so as to win those who are under Torah;
21 - to those without Torah, as without Torah - not being without Torah toward Elohim, but under Torah of Messiah - so as to win those who are without Torah.
22 - To the weak I became as weak, so as to win the weak. To all men I have become all, so as to save some, by all means.
23 - And I do this because of the Good News, so as to become a fellow-partaker with it.
24 - Do you not know that those who run in a race indeed all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way as to obtain it. ~ Anonymous,
72:The Reproof
Mamma heard me with scorn and pride
A wretched beggar-boy deride.
'Do you not know,' said I, 'how mean
It is to be thus begging seen?
If for a week I were not fed,
I'm sure I would not beg my bread.'
And then away she saw me stalk
With a most self-important walk.
But meeting her upon the stairs,
All these my consequential airs
Were changed to an entreating look.
'Give me,' said I, 'the pocket-book,
Mamma, you promised I should have.'
The pocket-book to me she gave;
After reproof and counsel sage
She bade me write in the first page
This naughty action all in rhyme;
No food to have until the time,
In writing fair and neatly worded,
The unfeeling fact I had recorded.
Slow I compose, and slow I write;
And now I feel keen hunger bite.
My mother's pardon I entreat,
And beg she'll give me food to eat.
Dry bread would be received with joy
By her repentant beggar-boy.
~ Charles Lamb,
73:The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised; so shall I be saved from my enemies. PSALM 18:2-3 Because you have made the LORD, who is my refuge, even the Most High, your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling; for He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. PSALM 91:9-12 I will restore health to you and heal you of your wounds. JEREMIAH 30:17 Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s. 1 CORINTHIANS 6:19-20 The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. JAMES 5:15 ~ Stormie Omartian,
74:Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sunrise
would kill me,
If I could not now and always send sunrise out of
me.
We also ascend dazzling and tremendous as the sun,
We found our own my soul in the calm and cool of
the daybreak.
My voice goes after what my eyes cannot reach,
With the twirl of my tongue I encompass worlds and
volumes of
worlds.
Speech is the twin of my vision.... it is unequal to
measure itself.
It provokes me forever,
It says sarcastically, Walt, you understand
enough.... why don’t
you let it out then?
Come now I will not be tantalized.... you conceive
too much of articulation.
Do you not know how the buds beneath are folded?
Waiting in gloom protected by frost,
The dirt receding before my prophetical screams,
I underlying causes to balance them at last,
My knowledge my live parts.... it keeping tally with
the
meaning of things,
Happiness.... which whoever hears me let him or
her set out in
search of this day. ~ Walt Whitman,
75:You were united with Him in a mystical death that took place. The thing that died was your old wicked heart. This is also called the “old man” or the “fleshly nature.” How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? (Rom. 6:2-3, ESV) You “died to sin.” This means it is no longer a part of you. You are not a “sinner saved by grace.” You are a saint. Take the word sinner completely out of the equation now. Grace transformed you from one thing into another. Consider the following translations of the previous verse: How is it possible for us, such persons as we are, who have been separated once for all from the sinful nature, any longer to live in its grip? (Rom. 6:2, WET) We died to our old sinful lives, so how can we continue living with sin? (Rom. 6:2, NCV) God did not just pull you out of sin. He pulled sin out of you! You are now the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. This is much more than the forgiveness of the old self. This entails the complete annihilation of the old self. God sank the whole ship. ~ John Crowder,
76:His teeth flashed white as he smiled. “Let us strike a bargain, wife.”
“What sort of bargain?” She made no attempt to hide her suspicion.
“I will do as I please with no resistance from you, and when I am satisfied, you may do as you wish.”
For just one moment, his evenhandedness surprised her. Just a moment . . .
“Do you remember what I said about ignorance and innocence, my lord?”
“Very clearly, my lady.”
“I have shucked off both. You toy with me. When you are satisfied, you will go to sleep and leave me to fume at having entered into so poor a pact.”
“You wound me, all the worse for wounding yourself. Do you not know you are a temptress no man could resist?” He frowned at the sudden thought. “Although they had damn well better lest they be fodder for my sword.” His big hand caught her hair, drawing her head back, baring her throat to his caress. “Be advised, wife, I am a possessive man.”
She took a breath, wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and parted her legs, drawing him into the cradle of her hips. “Be advised, husband,” she murmured close beside his ear just before she bit it lightly, “I am a possessive woman. ~ Josie Litton,
77:An Art Critic
Ira P. Rankin, you've a nasal name
I'll sound it through 'the speaking-trump of fame,'
And wondering nations, hearing from afar
The brazen twang of its resounding jar,
Shall say: 'These bards are an uncommon class
They blow their noses with a tube of brass!'
Rankin! ye gods! if Influenza pick
Our names at christening, and such names stick,
Let's all be born when summer suns withstand
Her prevalence and chase her from the land,
And healing breezes generously help
To shield from death each ailing human whelp!
'What's in a name?' There's much at least in yours
That the pained ear unwillingly endures,
And much to make the suffering soul, I fear,
Envy the lesser anguish of the ear.
So you object to Cytherea! Do,
The picture was not painted, sir, for you!
Your_ mind to gratify and taste address,
The masking dove had been a dove the less.
Provincial censor! all untaught in art,
With mind indecent and indecent heart,
Do you not know-nay, why should I explain?
Instruction, argument alike were vain
I'll show you reasons when you show me brain.
~ Ambrose Bierce,
78:an idle threat, for Nuri Said with the guns had gone back to Guweira. There were only one hundred and eighty Turks in the village, but they had supporters in the Muhaisin, a clan of the peasantry; not for love so much as because Dhiab, the vulgar head-man of another faction, had declared for Feisal. So they shot up at Nasir a stream of ill-directed bullets. The Howeitat spread out along the cliffs to return the peasants' fire. This manner of going displeased Auda, the old lion, who raged that a mercenary village folk should dare to resist their secular masters, the Abu Tayi. So he jerked his halter, cantered his mare down the path, and rode out plain to view beneath the easternmost houses of the village. There he reined in, and shook a hand at them, booming in his wonderful voice: 'Dogs, do you not know Auda?' When they realized it was that implacable son of war their hearts failed them, and an hour later Sherif Nasir in the town-house was sipping tea with his guest the Turkish Governor, trying to console him for the sudden change of fortune. At dark Mastur rode in. His Motalga looked blackly at their blood enemies the Abu Tayi, lolling in the best houses. The two Sherifs divided up the place, to keep their unruly followers apart. They had little authority to mediate ~ T E Lawrence,
79:I am small because I am a little child. I shall be big when I am
as old as my father is.
  My teacher will come and say, "It is late, bring your slate
and your books."
  I shall tell him, " Do you not know I am as big as father? And
I must not have lessons any more."
  My master will wonder and say, "He can leave his books if he
likes, for he is grown up."
  I shall dress myself and walk to the fair where the crowd is
thick.
  My uncle will come rushing up to me and say, "You will get
lost, my boy; let me carry you."
  I shall answer, "Can't you see, uncle, I am as big as father?
I must go to the fair alone."
  Uncle will say, "Yes, he can go wherever he likes, for he is
grown up."
  Mother will come from her bath when I am giving money to my
nurse, for I shall know how to open the box with my key.
  Mother will say, "What are you about, naughty child?"
  I shall tell her, "Mother, don't you know, I am as big as
father, and I must give silver to my nurse."
  Mother will say to herself, "He can give money to whom he
likes, for he is grown up."
  In the holiday time in October father will come home and,
thinking that I am still a baby, will bring for me from the town
little shoes and small silken frocks.
  I shall say, "Father, give them to my data, for I am as big
as you are."
  Father will think and say, "He can buy his own clothes if he
likes, for he is grown up."

~ Rabindranath Tagore, The Little Big Man
,
80:Warning Against Worldliness JAMES 4 [†]What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions [1] are  y at war within you? [2] 2[†]You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3[†]You ask and do not receive, because you ask  z wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 4[†] a You adulterous people! [3] Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?  b Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5[†]Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit  c that he has made to dwell in us”? 6[†]But  d he gives more grace. Therefore it says,  e “God opposes the proud, but  d gives grace to the humble.” 7[†]Submit yourselves therefore to God.  f Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8[†] g Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.  h Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and  i purify your hearts,  j you double-minded. 9[†] k Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10[†] l Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. 11[†] m Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. [4] The one who speaks against a brother or  n judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. 12[†]There is only  o one lawgiver and  p judge, he who is able to save and  q to destroy. But  r who are you to judge your neighbor? ~ Anonymous,
81:Maybe I . . . shouldn’t tell him what I thought I’d heard. Not until I knew more. How exactly would I put the revelation anyway? Jack’s alive, but apparently he kept that little detail secret. Ah, but Matthew spilled the beans! Buying myself time, I waved Aric on.

I was scarcely listening as he began talking about Paul, of all people. How the EMT had grown worried when I’d been shut in with my grandmother for so long. How I had lost weight and become listless. The man had pleaded with me to get a checkup, even offering to source contraception after Aric and I had started sleeping together.

Wait. I glanced up. “After?”

Aric nodded. “He said you told him you had no need of contraception.”

The hell? “I went to him and got a shot prior to us getting together. I told you about it.”

“As I told him in turn, but he swears that never happened.”

Real? Unreal? Had I . . . imagined my meeting with Paul? I’d already feared gaps in my memory; Gran had told me things that I’d had no recollection of. Was I now inventing memories?

Had I invented Jack’s return?

In a soothing voice, Aric said, “I’m not angry, love. Just talk to me.” He wasn’t the first person to look at me as if I’d gone insane, like I was trouble with the possibility of rubble.

Won’t be the last.

No. I refused this. I had heard Jack, and I had gotten that shot. “It did happen, which means Paul’s a liar.” But why would he lie? “I’m going to confront him.” In time. Right now, all I wanted was to hear from Matthew again.

Yet I frowned as a thought occurred. “Why would you be talking to Paul about contraception?”

Aric tucked my hair behind my ear. “Sievā,” he said gently, “do you not know you’re pregnant?”

Tick-tock. ~ Kresley Cole,
82:Woe beside those who live by way of examples! Life is not with them. If you live according to an example, you thus live the life of that example, but who should live your own life if not yourself? So live yourselves.
The signposts have fallen, unblazed trails lie before us. Do not be greedy to gobble up the fruits of foreign fields. Do you not know that you yourselves are the fertile acre which bears everything that avails you? Yet who today knows this? Who knows the way to the eternally fruitful climes of the soul, You seek the way through mere appearances, you study books and give ear to all kinds of opinion. What good is all that?
There is only one way and that is your way.
You seek the path? I warn you away from my own. It can also be the wrong way for you.
May each go his own way.
I will be no savior, no lawgiver, no master teacher unto you. You are no longer little children.
Giving laws, wanting improvements, making things easier, has all become wrong and evil. May each one seek out his own way. The way leads to mutual love in community. Men will come to see and feel the similarity and commonality of their ways.
Laws and teachings held in common compel people to solitude, so that they may escape the pressure of undesirable contact, but solitude makes people hostile and venomous.
Therefore give people dignity and let each of them stand apart, so that each may find his own fellowship and love it.
Power stands against power, contempt against contempt, love against love.
Give humanity dignity, and trust that life will find the better way.
The one eye of the Godhead is blind, the one ear of the Godhead is deaf, the order of its being is crossed by chaos. So be patient with the crippledness of the world and do not overvalue its consummate beauty. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti,
83:Dead!
Hush! or you'll wake her. Softly tread!
She slumbers in her little bed.
What do I see? A coffin! Dead?
Yes, dead at break of morning.
No, no, it cannot, cannot be!
I know that I can wake her. See!
She only plays at sleep. Ma mie,
Kiss me, for it is morning.
Look, pretty, look! Within, without,
Snowdrops and hyacinths lie about.
Why don't you clutch them with a shout
Blither than birds of morning?
You used to clap your hands with glee,
When I brought flowers. ``Are these for me?''
Now, now, you neither scent nor see
These incense-buds of morning.
Do you not know me, pet? Speak! speak!
There is no answer in her cheek.
To find her now where shall I seek?Seek in the vanished morning!
What can I do to make her heed?
I am crying, love; I am indeed.
Open your eyes and see. What need
To tease me all the morning?
Look! We will sally forth and play;
Ramble, and never ask our way,
Lessons and tasks all put away,
As though it were not morning.
We will do all that you desire,
And I will never, never tire
Of romping with you by the fire,
When 'tis no longer morning.
218
Your favourite tales, oft told before,
I'll tell you, darling, o'er and o'er;
It never shall be bedtime more,
Will you but wake this morning.
I will not ask you to sit still;
You shall be naughty when you will;
Shall spill my ink and spoil my quill,
And squander all my morning.
Alas! Alas! it is no cheat!
Quiet she lies from face to feet!
No smile, no sigh, no hue, no heat,
No earnest of the morning.
Draw high the sheet above her head.
She liked it, so. Dead? No, not dead.
The angels, hovering round her bed,
Will greet her in the morning.
~ Alfred Austin,
84:We can withstand a siege for some time,” Arin said. “The city walls are strong. They’re Valorian-built.”
“Which means that we will know how to bring them down.”
Arin swirled his glass, watching the water’s clear spin. “Care to bet? I have matches. I hear they make very fine stakes.” There was the quirk of a smile.
“We aren’t playing at Bite and Sting.”
“But if we were, and I kept raising the stakes higher to the point where you couldn’t bear to lose, what would you do? Maybe you’d give up the game. Herran’s only hope of winning against the empire is to become too painful to retake. To mire the Valorians in an unending siege when they’d rather be fighting the east. To force them to conquer the countryside again, piece by piece, spending money and lives. Someday, the empire will decide we’re not worth the fight.”
Kestrel shook her head. “Herran will always be worth it.”
Arin looked at her, his hands resting on the table. He, too, had no knife. Kestrel knew that this was to make it less obvious that she wasn’t to be trusted with one. Instead, it became more.
“You’re missing a button,” he said abruptly.
“What?”
He reached across the table and touched the cloth at her wrist, on the spot of an open seam. His fingertip brushed the frayed thread.
Kestrel forgot that she had been troubled. She had been thinking about knives, she remembered, and now they were talking about buttons, but what one had to do with the other, she couldn’t say.
“Why don’t you mend it?” he said.
She recovered herself. “That is a silly question.”
“Kestrel, do you not know how to sew a button?”
She refused to answer.
“Wait here,” he said.
Arin returned with a sewing kit and button. He threaded a needle, bit it between his teeth, and took her wrist with both hands.
Her blood turned to wine.
“This is how you do it,” he said.
He took the needle from his mouth and pierced it through the cloth. ~ Marie Rutkoski,
85:As I walked away, I heard the girl ask, “Is she your girlfriend?”
I whirled around, and we both said “No!” at the same time.
Confused, she said, “Well, is she your little sister?” like I wasn’t standing right there. Her perfume was heavy. It felt like it filled all the air around us, like we were breathing her in.
“No, I’m not his little sister.” I hated this girl for being a witness to all this. It was humiliating. And she was pretty, in the same kind of way Taylor was pretty, which somehow made things worse.
Conrad said, “Her mom is best friends with my mom.” So that was all I was to him? His mom’s friend’s daughter?
I took a deep breath, and without even thinking, I said to the girl, “I’ve known Conrad my whole life. So let me be the one to tell you you’re barking up the wrong tree. Conrad will never love anyone as much as he loves himself, if you know what I mean-“ I lifted up my hand and wiggled my fingers.
“Shut up, Belly,” Conrad warned. The tops of his ears were turning bright red. It was a low blow, but I didn’t care. He deserved it.
Red Sox girl frowned. “What is she talking about, Conrad?”
To her I blurted out, “Oh, I’m sorry, do you not know what the idiom ‘barking up the wrong tree’ means?”
Her pretty face twisted. “You little skank,” she hissed.
I could feel myself shrinking. I wished I could take it back. I’d never gotten into a fight with a girl before, or with anyone for that matter.
Thankfully, Conrad broke in then and pointed to the bonfire. “Belly, go back over there, and wait for me to come get you,” he said harshly.
That’s when Jeremiah ambled over. “Hey, hey, what’s going on?” he asked, smiling in his easy, goofy way.
“Your brother is a jerk,” I said. “That’s what’s going on.”
Jeremiah put his arm around me. He smelled like beer. “You guys play nice, you hear?”
I shrugged out of his hold and said, “I am playing nice. Tell your brother to play nice.”
“Wait, are you guys brother and sister too?” the girl asked.
Conrad said, “Don’t even think about leaving with that guy.”
“Con, chill out,” Jeremiah said. “She’s not leaving. Right, Belly?”
He looked at me, and I pursed my lips and nodded. Then I gave Conrad the dirtiest look I could muster, and I shot one at the girl, too, when I was far enough away that she wouldn’t be able to reach out and grab me by the hair. ~ Jenny Han,
86:What are we doing here?” Burnes said, almost to himself. “That, Burnes, I cannot tell you. I do not know why anyone leaves his house, to travel ten thousand miles, when all the poetry that has ever been written, all the poetry since the beginning of the world all tells us the single lesson that we would be happiest in our own homes, since that is where happiness is born, and where it lives. What poetry cannot answer is the question that follows from that, whether we men actually want to be happy, or whether we would prefer to be restless. In your case—in the English, excuse me, the British case—I would say that when you have gone home, when you are all old and thinking about what this adventure, this whole centuries-long adventure meant, what it meant to you . . . well, things do not always mean something, but perhaps your adventure, perhaps it meant something. You will sit at home and look into your fires and draw your Cashmire shawls about you, and think that you came here for one reason. Of course, now, you tell yourself all sorts of fairy stories—you are here to sell us your wonderful English goods, you want to set us free, you want us to grow up, you want to educate us and make us worship three gods instead of forty thousand—” “Only one God.” “I stand corrected, Burnes-ji, and I am sure your one God is much more sensible than ours, who are quaint, who have the heads of elephants and monkeys and have blue skin. They are all very good reasons to tell yourself at the time, but they are not, at the bottom, the real reason you came here. You came here not to make yourselves rich, not to make us better and Christian and clean and dressed in Bradford cotton. You believe all this, I know. But when you are old and tired and sleeping in a thousand years’ time, you will start to realize that you came here and took possession of what was not yours for one reason. To surrender it, to give it up. That is the only reason. Do you not know your Shakespeare, Burnes? Have you never seen The Tempest in your London theatres? Do you not think it strange that, so very long ago, before your English kings owned anything at all, your English poet was dreaming of giving it all up, of surrendering what was not yet yours? Of what never would truly be yours? You are not adventurers; you are all Prosperos, waiting for the day you can give it up, drown your book, and return nobly. We endure your presence, because we see that when you look at us, you know that we will take it all back one day. And you want us to. That desire is so strong in you, it makes you build an empire; because if you never had an empire, you would not have one so nobly to surrender. That, Burnes, is what you are doing here. You asked me, and you did not think that I had an answer. But I have an answer, and that is what you are doing here. And now you are tired, and I shall leave you. ~ Philip Hensher,
87:I hurried over to Conrad, walking so fast I kicked up sand behind me. “Hey, I’m gonna get a ride,” I said breathlessly.
The blond Red Sox girl looked me up and down. “Hello,” she said.
Conrad said, “With who?”
I pointed at Cam. “Him.”
“You’re not riding with someone you don’t even know,” he said flatly.
“I do so know him. He’s Sextus.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Sex what?”
“Never mind. His name is Cam, he’s studying whales, and you don’t get to decide who I ride home with. I was just letting you know, as a courtesy. I wasn’t asking for your permission.” I started to walk away, but he grabbed my elbow.
“I don’t care what he’s studying. It’s not gonna happen,” he said casually, but his grip was tight. “If you want to go, I’ll take you.”
I took a deep breath. I had to keep cool. I wasn’t going to let him goad me into being a baby, not in front of all these people. “No, thanks,” I said, trying to walk away again. But he didn’t let go.
“I thought you already had a boyfriend?” His tone was mocking, and I knew he’d seen through my lie the night before.
I wanted so badly to throw a handful of sand in his face. I tried to twist out of his grip. “Let go of me! That hurts!”
He let go immediately, his face red. It didn’t really hurt, but I wanted to embarrass him the way he was embarrassing me. I said loudly, “I’d rather ride with a stranger than with someone who’s been drinking!”
“I’ve had one beer,” he snapped. “I weigh a hundred and seventy-five pounds. Wait half an hour and I’ll take you. Stop being such a brat.”
I could feel tears starting to spark my eyelids. I looked over my shoulder to see if Cam was watching. He was. “You’re an asshole,” I said.
He looked me dead in the eyes and said, “And you’re a four-year-old.”
As I walked away, I heard the girl ask, “Is she your girlfriend?”
I whirled around, and we both said “No!” at the same time.
Confused, she said, “Well, is she your little sister?” like I wasn’t standing right there. Her perfume was heavy. It felt like it filled all the air around us, like we were breathing her in.
“No, I’m not his little sister.” I hated this girl for being a witness to all this. It was humiliating. And she was pretty, in the same kind of way Taylor was pretty, which somehow made things worse.
Conrad said, “Her mom is best friends with my mom.” So that was all I was to him? His mom’s friend’s daughter?
I took a deep breath, and without even thinking, I said to the girl, “I’ve known Conrad my whole life. So let me be the one to tell you you’re barking up the wrong tree. Conrad will never love anyone as much as he loves himself, if you know what I mean-“ I lifted up my hand and wiggled my fingers.
“Shut up, Belly,” Conrad warned. The tops of his ears were turning bright red. It was a low blow, but I didn’t care. He deserved it.
Red Sox girl frowned. “What is she talking about, Conrad?”
To her I blurted out, “Oh, I’m sorry, do you not know what the idiom ‘barking up the wrong tree’ means?”
Her pretty face twisted. “You little skank,” she hissed.
I could feel myself shrinking. I wished I could take it back. I’d never gotten into a fight with a girl before, or with anyone for that matter.
Thankfully, Conrad broke in then and pointed to the bonfire. “Belly, go back over there, and wait for me to come get you,” he said harshly.
That’s when Jeremiah ambled over. “Hey, hey, what’s going on?” he asked, smiling in his easy, goofy way.
“Your brother is a jerk,” I said. “That’s what’s going on.”
Jeremiah put his arm around me. He smelled like beer. “You guys play nice, you hear?”
I shrugged out of his hold and said, “I am playing nice. Tell your brother to play nice.”
“Wait, are you guys brother and sister too?” the girl asked.
Conrad said, “Don’t even think about leaving with that guy. ~ Jenny Han,
88:The Supreme Discovery
   IF WE want to progress integrally, we must build within our conscious being a strong and pure mental synthesis which can serve us as a protection against temptations from outside, as a landmark to prevent us from going astray, as a beacon to light our way across the moving ocean of life.
   Each individual should build up this mental synthesis according to his own tendencies and affinities and aspirations. But if we want it to be truly living and luminous, it must be centred on the idea that is the intellectual representation symbolising That which is at the centre of our being, That which is our life and our light.
   This idea, expressed in sublime words, has been taught in various forms by all the great Instructors in all lands and all ages.
   The Self of each one and the great universal Self are one. Since all that is exists from all eternity in its essence and principle, why make a distinction between the being and its origin, between ourselves and what we place at the beginning?
   The ancient traditions rightly said:
   "Our origin and ourselves, our God and ourselves are one."
   And this oneness should not be understood merely as a more or less close and intimate relationship of union, but as a true identity.
   Thus, when a man who seeks the Divine attempts to reascend by degrees towards the inaccessible, he forgets that all his knowledge and all his intuition cannot take him one step forward in this infinite; neither does he know that what he wants to attain, what he believes to be so far from him, is within him.
   For how could he know anything of the origin until he becomes conscious of this origin in himself?
   It is by understanding himself, by learning to know himself, that he can make the supreme discovery and cry out in wonder like the patriarch in the Bible, "The house of God is here and I knew it not."
   That is why we must express that sublime thought, creatrix of the material worlds, and make known to all the word that fills the heavens and the earth, "I am in all things and all beings."When all shall know this, the promised day of great transfigurations will be at hand. When in each atom of Matter men shall recognise the indwelling thought of God, when in each living creature they shall perceive some hint of a gesture of God, when each man can see God in his brother, then dawn will break, dispelling the darkness, the falsehood, the ignorance, the error and suffering that weigh upon all Nature. For, "all Nature suffers and laments as she awaits the revelation of the Sons of God."
   This indeed is the central thought epitomising all others, the thought which should be ever present to our remembrance as the sun that illumines all life.
   That is why I remind you of it today. For if we follow our path bearing this thought in our hearts like the rarest jewel, the most precious treasure, if we allow it to do its work of illumination and transfiguration within us, we shall know that it lives in the centre of all beings and all things, and in it we shall feel the marvellous oneness of the universe.
   Then we shall understand the vanity and childishness of our meagre satisfactions, our foolish quarrels, our petty passions, our blind indignations. We shall see the dissolution of our little faults, the crumbling of the last entrenchments of our limited personality and our obtuse egoism. We shall feel ourselves being swept along by this sublime current of true spirituality which will deliver us from our narrow limits and bounds.
   The individual Self and the universal Self are one; in every world, in every being, in every thing, in every atom is the Divine Presence, and man's mission is to manifest it.
   In order to do that, he must become conscious of this Divine Presence within him. Some individuals must undergo a real apprenticeship in order to achieve this: their egoistic being is too all-absorbing, too rigid, too conservative, and their struggles against it are long and painful. Others, on the contrary, who are more impersonal, more plastic, more spiritualised, come easily into contact with the inexhaustible divine source of their being.But let us not forget that they too should devote themselves daily, constantly, to a methodical effort of adaptation and transformation, so that nothing within them may ever again obscure the radiance of that pure light.
   But how greatly the standpoint changes once we attain this deeper consciousness! How understanding widens, how compassion grows!
   On this a sage has said:
   "I would like each one of us to come to the point where he perceives the inner God who dwells even in the vilest of human beings; instead of condemning him we would say, 'Arise, O resplendent Being, thou who art ever pure, who knowest neither birth nor death; arise, Almighty One, and manifest thy nature.'"
   Let us live by this beautiful utterance and we shall see everything around us transformed as if by miracle.
   This is the attitude of true, conscious and discerning love, the love which knows how to see behind appearances, understand in spite of words, and which, amid all obstacles, is in constant communion with the depths.
   What value have our impulses and our desires, our anguish and our violence, our sufferings and our struggles, all these inner vicissitudes unduly dramatised by our unruly imagination - what value do they have before this great, this sublime and divine love bending over us from the innermost depths of our being, bearing with our weaknesses, rectifying our errors, healing our wounds, bathing our whole being with its regenerating streams?
   For the inner Godhead never imposes herself, she neither demands nor threatens; she offers and gives herself, conceals and forgets herself in the heart of all beings and things; she never accuses, she neither judges nor curses nor condemns, but works unceasingly to perfect without constraint, to mend without reproach, to encourage without impatience, to enrich each one with all the wealth he can receive; she is the mother whose love bears fruit and nourishes, guards and protects, counsels and consoles; because she understands everything, she can endure everything, excuse and pardon everything, hope and prepare for everything; bearing everything within herself, she owns nothing that does not belong to all, and because she reigns over all, she is the servant of all; that is why all, great and small, who want to be kings with her and gods in her, become, like her, not despots but servitors among their brethren.
   How beautiful is this humble role of servant, the role of all who have been revealers and heralds of the God who is within all, of the Divine Love that animates all things....
   And until we can follow their example and become true servants even as they, let us allow ourselves to be penetrated and transformed by this Divine Love; let us offer Him, without reserve, this marvellous instrument, our physical organism. He shall make it yield its utmost on every plane of activity.
   To achieve this total self-consecration, all means are good, all methods have their value. The one thing needful is to persevere in our will to attain this goal. For then everything we study, every action we perform, every human being we meet, all come to bring us an indication, a help, a light to guide us on the path.
   Before I close, I shall add a few pages for those who have already made apparently fruitless efforts, for those who have encountered the pitfalls on the way and seen the measure of their weakness, for those who are in danger of losing their self-confidence and courage. These pages, intended to rekindle hope in the hearts of those who suffer, were written by a spiritual worker at a time when ordeals of every kind were sweeping down on him like purifying flames.
   You who are weary, downcast and bruised, you who fall, who think perhaps that you are defeated, hear the voice of a friend. He knows your sorrows, he has shared them, he has suffered like you from the ills of the earth; like you he has crossed many deserts under the burden of the day, he has known thirst and hunger, solitude and abandonment, and the cruellest of all wants, the destitution of the heart. Alas! he has known too the hours of doubt, the errors, the faults, the failings, every weakness.
   But he tells you: Courage! Hearken to the lesson that the rising sun brings to the earth with its first rays each morning. It is a lesson of hope, a message of solace.
   You who weep, who suffer and tremble, who dare not expect an end to your ills, an issue to your pangs, behold: there is no night without dawn and the day is about to break when darkness is thickest; there is no mist that the sun does not dispel, no cloud that it does not gild, no tear that it will not dry one day, no storm that is not followed by its shining triumphant bow; there is no snow that it does not melt, nor winter that it does not change into radiant spring.
   And for you too, there is no affliction which does not bring its measure of glory, no distress which cannot be transformed into joy, nor defeat into victory, nor downfall into higher ascension, nor solitude into radiating centre of life, nor discord into harmony - sometimes it is a misunderstanding between two minds that compels two hearts to open to mutual communion; lastly, there is no infinite weakness that cannot be changed into strength. And it is even in supreme weakness that almightiness chooses to reveal itself!
   Listen, my little child, you who today feel so broken, so fallen perhaps, who have nothing left, nothing to cover your misery and foster your pride: never before have you been so great! How close to the summits is he who awakens in the depths, for the deeper the abyss, the more the heights reveal themselves!
   Do you not know this, that the most sublime forces of the vasts seek to array themselves in the most opaque veils of Matter? Oh, the sublime nuptials of sovereign love with the obscurest plasticities, of the shadow's yearning with the most royal light!
   If ordeal or fault has cast you down, if you have sunk into the nether depths of suffering, do not grieve - for there indeed the divine love and the supreme blessing can reach you! Because you have passed through the crucible of purifying sorrows, the glorious ascents are yours.
   You are in the wilderness: then listen to the voices of the silence. The clamour of flattering words and outer applause has gladdened your ears, but the voices of the silence will gladden your soul and awaken within you the echo of the depths, the chant of divine harmonies!
   You are walking in the depths of night: then gather the priceless treasures of the night. In bright sunshine, the ways of intelligence are lit, but in the white luminosities of the night lie the hidden paths of perfection, the secret of spiritual riches.
   You are being stripped of everything: that is the way towards plenitude. When you have nothing left, everything will be given to you. Because for those who are sincere and true, from the worst always comes the best.
   Every grain that is sown in the earth produces a thousand. Every wing-beat of sorrow can be a soaring towards glory.
   And when the adversary pursues man relentlessly, everything he does to destroy him only makes him greater.
   Hear the story of the worlds, look: the great enemy seems to triumph. He casts the beings of light into the night, and the night is filled with stars. He rages against the cosmic working, he assails the integrity of the empire of the sphere, shatters its harmony, divides and subdivides it, scatters its dust to the four winds of infinity, and lo! the dust is changed into a golden seed, fertilising the infinite and peopling it with worlds which now gravitate around their eternal centre in the larger orbit of space - so that even division creates a richer and deeper unity, and by multiplying the surfaces of the material universe, enlarges the empire that it set out to destroy.
   Beautiful indeed was the song of the primordial sphere cradled in the bosom of immensity, but how much more beautiful and triumphant is the symphony of the constellations, the music of the spheres, the immense choir that fills the heavens with an eternal hymn of victory!
   Hear again: no state was ever more precarious than that of man when he was separated on earth from his divine origin. Above him stretched the hostile borders of the usurper, and at his horizon's gates watched jailers armed with flaming swords. Then, since he could climb no more to the source of life, the source arose within him; since he could no more receive the light from above, the light shone forth at the very centre of his being; since he could commune no more with the transcendent love, that love offered itself in a holocaust and chose each terrestrial being, each human self as its dwelling-place and sanctuary.
   That is how, in this despised and desolate but fruitful and blessed Matter, each atom contains a divine thought, each being carries within him the Divine Inhabitant. And if no being in all the universe is as frail as man, neither is any as divine as he!
   In truth, in truth, in humiliation lies the cradle of glory! 28 April 1912 ~ The Mother, Words Of Long Ago, The Supreme Discovery,
89:A Dramatic Poem

The deck of an ancient ship. At the right of the stage is the mast,
with a large square sail hiding a great deal of the sky and sea
on that side. The tiller is at the left of the stage; it is a long oar
coming through an opening in the bulwark. The deck rises in a
series of steps hehind the tiller, and the stern of the ship curves
overhead. When the play opens there are four persons upon the
deck. Aibric stands by the tiller. Forgael sleeps upon the raised
portion of the deck towards the front of the stage. Two Sailors
are standing near to the mast, on which a harp is hanging.

First Sailor. Has he not led us into these waste seas
  For long enough?

Second Sailor.  Aye, long and long enough.

First Sailor. We have not come upon a shore or ship
  These dozen weeks.

Second Sailor.  And I had thought to make
  A good round Sum upon this cruise, and turn
  For I am getting on in lifeto something
  That has less ups and downs than robbery.

First Sailor. I am so tired of being bachelor
  I could give all my heart to that Red Moll
  That had but the one eye.

Second Sailor.    Can no bewitchment
  Transform these rascal billows into women
  That I may drown myself?

First Sailor.     Better steer home,
  Whether he will or no; and better still
  To take him while he sleeps and carry him
  And drop him from the gunnel.

Second Sailor.       I dare not do it.
  Weret not that there is magic in his harp,
  I would be of your mind; but when he plays it
  Strange creatures flutter up before ones eyes,
  Or cry about ones ears.

First Sailor.     Nothing to fear.

Second Sailor. Do you remember when we sank that
     galley
  At the full moon?

First Sailor.  He played all through the night.

Second Sailor. Until the moon had set; and when I looked
  Where the dead drifted, I could see a bird
  Like a grey gull upon the breast of each.
  While I was looking they rose hurriedly,
  And after circling with strange cries awhile
  Flew westward; and many a time since then
  Ive heard a rustling overhead in the wind.

First Sailor. I saw them on that night as well as you.
  But when I had eaten and drunk myself asleep
  My courage came again.

Second Sailor.    But thats not all.
  The other night, while he was playing it,
  A beautiful young man and girl came up
  In a white breaking wave; they had the look
  Of those that are alive for ever and ever.

First Sailor. I saw them, too, one night. Forgael was
     playing,
  And they were listening ther& beyond the sail.
  He could not see them, but I held out my hands
  To grasp the woman.

Second Sailor.  You have dared to touch her?

First Sailor. O she was but a shadow, and slipped from
  me.

Second Sailor. But were you not afraid?

First Sailor.          Why should I fear?

Second Sailor. Twas Aengus and Edain, the wandering
     lovers,
  To whom all lovers pray.

First Sailor.     But what of that?
  A shadow does not carry sword or spear.

Second Sailor. My mother told me that there is not one
  Of the Ever-living half so dangerous
  As that wild Aengus. Long before her day
  He carried Edain off from a kings house,
  And hid her among fruits of jewel-stone
  And in a tower of glass, and from that day
  Has hated every man thats not in love,
  And has been dangerous to him.

First Sailor.          I have heard
  He does not hate seafarers as he hates
  Peaceable men that shut the wind away,
  And keep to the one weary marriage-bed.

Second Sailor. I think that he has Forgael in his net,
  And drags him through the sea,

First Sailor        Well, net or none,
  Id drown him while we have the chance to do it.

Second Sailor. Its certain Id sleep easier o nights
  If he were dead; but who will be our captain,
  Judge of the stars, and find a course for us?

First Sailor. Ive thought of that. We must have Aibric
     with us,
  For he can judge the stars as well as Forgael.

                 [Going towards Aibric.]

  Become our captain, Aibric. I am resolved
  To make an end of Forgael while he sleeps.
  Theres not a man but will be glad of it
  When it is over, nor one to grumble at us.

Aibric. You have taken pay and made your bargain for it.

First Sailor. What good is there in this hard way of
     living,
  Unless we drain more flagons in a year
  And kiss more lips than lasting peaceable men
  In their long lives? Will you be of our troop
  And take the captains share of everything
  And bring us into populous seas again?

Aibric. Be of your troop! Aibric be one of you
  And Forgael in the other scale! kill Forgael,
  And he my master from my childhood up!
  If you will draw that sword out of its scabbard
  Ill give my answer.

First Sailor.  You have awakened him.

                 [To Second Sailor.]

  Wed better go, for we have lost this chance.

                 [They go out.]

Forgael. Have the birds passed us? I could hear your
     voice,
  But there were others.

Aibric.        I have seen nothing pass.

Forgael. Youre certain of it? I never wake from sleep
  But that I am afraid they may have passed,
  For theyre my only pilots. If I lost them
  Straying too far into the north or south,
  Id never come upon the happiness
  That has been promised me. I have not seen them
  These many days; and yet there must be many
  Dying at every moment in the world,
  And flying towards their peace.

Aibric.          Put by these thoughts,
  And listen to me for a while. The sailors
  Are plotting for your death.

Forgael.          Have I not given
  More riches than they ever hoped to find?
  And now they will not follow, while I seek
  The only riches that have hit my fancy.

Aibric. What riches can you find in this waste sea
  Where no ship sails, where nothing thats alive
  Has ever come but those man-headed birds,
  Knowing it for the worlds end?

Forgael.           Where the world ends
  The mind is made unchanging, for it finds
  Miracle, ecstasy, the impossible hope,
  The flagstone under all, the fire of fires,
  The roots of the world.

Aibric.        Shadows before now
  Have driven travellers mad for their own sport.

Forgael. Do you, too, doubt me? Have you joined their
     plot?

Aibric. No, no, do not say that. You know right well
  That I will never lift a hand against you.

Forgael. Why should you be more faithful than the rest,
  Being as doubtful?

Aibric.     I have called you master
  Too many years to lift a hand against you.

Forgael. Maybe it is but natural to doubt me.
  Youve never known, Id lay a wager on it,
  A melancholy that a cup of wine,
  A lucky battle, or a womans kiss
  Could not amend.

Aibric.     I have good spirits enough.

Forgael. If you will give me all your mind awhile
  All, all, the very bottom of the bowl
  Ill show you that I am made differently,
  That nothing can amend it but these waters,
  Where I am rid of lifethe events of the world
  What do you call it?that old promise-breaker,
  The cozening fortune-teller that comes whispering,
  You will have all you have wished for when you have
     earned
  Land for your children or money in a pot.-
  And when we have it we are no happier,
  Because of that old draught under the door,
  Or creaky shoes. And at the end of all
  How are we better off than Seaghan the fool,
  That never did a hands turn? Aibric! Aibric!
  We have fallen in the dreams the Ever-living
  Breathe on the burnished mirror of the world
  And then smooth out with ivory hands and sigh,
  And find their laughter sweeter to the taste
  For that brief sighing.

Aibric.       If you had loved some woman

Forgael. You say that also? You have heard the voices,
  For that is what they sayall, all the shadows
  Aengus and Edain, those passionate wanderers,
  And all the others; but it must be love
  As they have known it. Now the secrets out;
  For it is love that I am seeking for,
  But of a beautiful, unheard-of kind
  That is not in the world.

Aibric.        And yet the world
  Has beautiful women to please every man.

Forgael. But he that gets their love after the fashion
  Loves in brief longing and deceiving hope
  And bodily tenderness, and finds that even
  The bed of love, that in the imagination
  Had seemed to be the giver of all peace,
  Is no more than a wine-cup in the tasting,
  And as soon finished.

Aibric.      All that ever loved
  Have loved that waythere is no other way.

Forgael. Yet never have two lovers kissed but they
  believed there was some other near at hand,
  And almost wept because they could not find it.

Aibric. When they have twenty years; in middle life
  They take a kiss for what a kiss is worth,
  And let the dream go by.

Forgael.          Its not a dream,
  But the reality that makes our passion
  As a lamp shadownono lamp, the sun.
  What the worlds million lips are thirsting for
  Must be substantial somewhere.

Aibric.          I have heard the Druids
  Mutter such things as they awake from trance.
  It may be that the Ever-living know it
  No mortal can.

Forgael.  Yes; if they give us help.

Aibric. They are besotting you as they besot
  The crazy herdsman that will tell his fellows
  That he has been all night upon the hills,
  Riding to hurley, or in the battle-host
  With the Ever-living.

Forgael.      What if he speak the truth,
  And for a dozen hours have been a part
  Of that more powerful life?

Aibric,          His wife knows better.
  Has she not seen him lying like a log,
  Or fumbling in a dream about the house?
  And if she hear him mutter of wild riders,
  She knows that it was but the cart-horse coughing
  That set him to the fancy.

Forgael.        All would be well
  Could we but give us wholly to the dreams,
  And get into their world that to the sense
  Is shadow, and not linger wretchedly
  Among substantial things; for it is dreams
  That lift us to the flowing, changing world
  That the heart longs for. What is love itself,
  Even though it be the lightest of light love,
  But dreams that hurry from beyond the world
  To make low laughter more than meat and drink,
  Though it but set us sighing? Fellow-wanderer,
  Could we but mix ourselves into a dream,
  Not in its image on the mirror!

Aibric.            While
  Were in the body thats impossible.

Forgael. And yet I cannot think theyre leading me
  To death; for they that promised to me love
  As those that can outlive the moon have known it,
  Had the worlds total life gathered up, it seemed,
  Into their shining limbsIve had great teachers.
  Aengus and Edain ran up out of the wave
  Youd never doubt that it was life they promised
  Had you looked on them face to face as I did,
  With so red lips, and running on such feet,
  And having such wide-open, shining eyes.

Aibric. Its certain they are leading you to death.
  None but the dead, or those that never lived,
  Can know that ecstasy. Forgael! Forgael!
  They have made you follow the man-headed birds,
  And you have told me that their journey lies
  Towards the country of the dead.

Forgael.            What matter
  If I am going to my death?for there,
  Or somewhere, I shall find the love they have
     promised.
  That much is certain. I shall find a woman.
  One of the Ever-living, as I think
  One of the Laughing Peopleand she and I
  Shall light upon a place in the worlds core,
  Where passion grows to be a changeless thing,
  Like charmed apples made of chrysoprase,
  Or chrysoberyl, or beryl, or chrysclite;
  And there, in juggleries of sight and sense,
  Become one movement, energy, delight,
  Until the overburthened moon is dead.

                 [A number of Sailors entcr hurriedly.]

First Sailor. Look there! there in the mist! a ship of spice!
  And we are almost on her!

Second Sailor.     We had not known
  But for the ambergris and sandalwood.

First Sailor. NO; but opoponax and cinnamon.

Forgael [taking the tiller from Aibric]. The Ever-living have
  kept my bargain for me,
  And paid you on the nail.

Aibric.        Take up that rope
  To make her fast while we are plundering her.

First Sailor. There is a king and queen upon her deck,
  And where there is one woman therell be others.
Aibric. Speak lower, or theyll hear.

First Sailor.            They cannot hear;
  They are too busy with each other. Look!
  He has stooped down and kissed her on the lips.

Second Sailor. When she finds out we have better men
     aboard
  She may not be too sorry in the end.

First Sailor. She will be like a wild cat; for these queens
  Care more about the kegs of silver and gold
  And the high fame that come to them in marriage,
  Than a strong body and a ready hand.

Second Sailor. Theres nobody is natural but a robber,
  And that is why the world totters about
  Upon its bandy legs.

Aibric.        Run at them now,
  And overpower the crew while yet asleep!

                 [The Sailors go out.]

[Voices and thc clashing of swords are heard from the
  other ship, which cannot be seen because of the sail.]

A Voice. Armed men have come upon us! O I am slain!

Another Voice. Wake all below!

Another Voice.  Why have you broken our sleep?

First Voice. Armed men have come upon us! O I am
     slain!

Forgael [who has remained at the tiller]. There! there they
  come! Gull, gannet, or diver,
  But with a mans head, or a fair womans,
  They hover over the masthead awhile
  To wait their Fiends; but when their friends have
     come
  Theyll fly upon that secret way of theirs.
  Oneand onea couplefive together;
  And I will hear them talking in a minute.
  Yes, voices! but I do not catch the words.
  Now I can hear. Theres one of them that says,
  How light we are, now we are changed to birds!
  Another answers, Maybe we shall find
  Our hearts desire now that we are so light.
  And then one asks another how he died,
  And says, A sword-blade pierced me in my sleep.-
  And now they all wheel suddenly and fly
  To the other side, and higher in the air.
  And now a laggard with a womans head
  Comes crying, I have run upon the sword.
  I have fled to my beloved in the air,
  In the waste of the high air, that we may wander
  Among the windy meadows of the dawn.
  But why are they still waiting? why are they
  Circling and circling over the masthead?
  What power that is more mighty than desire
  To hurry to their hidden happiness
  Withholds them now? Have the Ever-living Ones
  A meaning in that circling overhead?
  But whats the meaning? [He cries out.] Why do you
     linger there?
  Why linger? Run to your desire,
  Are you not happy winged bodies now?

                 [His voice sinks again.]

  Being too busy in the air and the high air,
  They cannot hear my voice; but whats the meaning?

        [The Sailors have returned. Dectora is with them.]

Forgael [turning and seeing her]. Why are you standing
  with your eyes upon me?
  You are not the worlds core. O no, no, no!
  That cannot be the meaning of the birds.
  You are not its core. My teeth are in the world,
  But have not bitten yet.

Dectora.       I am a queen,
  And ask for satisfaction upon these
  Who have slain my husband and laid hands upon me.

     [Breaking loose from the Sailors who are holding her.]

  Let go my hands!

Forgael.     Why do you cast a shadow?
  Where do you come from? Who brought you to this
     place?
  They would not send me one that casts a shadow.

Dectora. Would that the storm that overthrew my ships,
  And drowned the treasures of nine conquered nations,
  And blew me hither to my lasting sorrow,
  Had drowned me also. But, being yet alive,
  I ask a fitting punishment for all
  That raised their hands against him.

Forgael.               There are some
  That weigh and measure all in these waste seas
  They that have all the wisdom thats in life,
  And all that prophesying images
  Made of dim gold rave out in secret tombs;
  They have it that the plans of kings and queens
  But laughter and tearslaughter, laughter, and tears;
  That every man should carry his own soul
  Upon his shoulders.

Dectora.     Youve nothing but wild words,
  And I would know if you will give me vengeance.

Forgael. When she finds out I will not let her go
  When she knows that.

Dectora. What is it that you are muttering
  That youll not let me go? I am a queen.

Forgael. Although you are more beautiful than any,
  I almost long that it were possible;
  But if I were to put you on that ship,
  With sailors that were sworn to do your will,
  And you had spread a sail for home, a wind
  Would rise of a sudden, or a wave so huge
  It had washed among the stars and put them out,
  And beat the bulwark of your ship on mine,
  Until you stood before me on the deck
  As now.

Dectora.  Does wandering in these desolate seas
  And listening to the cry of wind and wave
  Bring madness?

Forgael.  Queen, I am not mad.

Dectora.              Yet say
  That unimaginable storms of wind and wave
  Would rise against me.

Forgael.       No, I am not mad
  If it be not that hearing messages
  From lasting watchers, that outlive the moon,
  At the most quiet midnight is to be stricken.

Dectora. And did those watchers bid you take me
  captive?

Forgael.  Both you and I are taken in the net.
  It was their hands that plucked the winds awake
  And blew you hither; and their mouths have
     promised
  I shall have love in their immortal fashion;
  And for this end they gave me my old harp
  That is more mighty than the sun and moon,
  Or than the shivering casting-net of the stars,
  That none might take you from me.

Dectora [first trembling back from the mast where the harp is,
  and then laughing]. For a moment
  Your raving of a message and a harp
  More mighty than the stars half troubled me,
  But all thats raving. Who is there can compel
  The daughter and the granddaughter of kings
  To be his bedfellow?

Forgael.     Until your lips
  Have called me their beloved, Ill not kiss them.

Dectora. My husband and miy king died at my feet,
  And yet you talk of love.

Forgael.        The movement of time
  Is shaken in these seas, and what one does
  One moment has no might upon the moment
  That follows after.

Dectora.     I understand you now.
  You have a Druid craft of wicked sound
  Wrung from the cold women of the sea
  A magic that can call a demon up,
  Until my body give you kiss for kiss.

Forgael. Your soul shall give the kiss.

Dectora.            I am not afraid,
  While theres a rope to run into a noose
  Or wave to drown. But I have done with words,
  And I would have you look into my face
  And know that it is fearless.

Forgael.          Do what you will,
  For neither I nor you can break a mesh
  Of the great golden net that is about us.

Dectora. Theres nothing in the world thats worth a
  fear.

[She passes Forgael and stands for a moment looking into
his face.]

  I have good reason for that thought.

[She runs suddenly on to the raiscd part of the poop.]

  And now
  I can put fear away as a queen should.

[She mounts on to the hulwark and turns towards
Forgael.]

  Fool, fool! Although you have looked into my face
  You do not see my purpose. I shall have gone
  Before a hand can touch me.

Forgael [folding his arms].   My hands are still;
  The Ever-living hold us. Do what you will,
  You cannot leap out of the golden net.

First Sailor. No need to drown, for, if you will pardon
     us
  And measure out a course and bring us home,
  Well put this man to death.

Dectora.          I promise it.

First Sailor. There is none to take his side.

Aibric.          I am on his side,
  Ill strike a blow for him to give him time
  To cast his dreams away.

[Aibric goes in front of Forgael with drawn sword. For-
gael takes the harp.]

First Sailor.       No otherll do it.

[The Sailors throw Aibric on one side. He falls and lies
upon the deck. They lift their swords to strike Forgael,
who is about to play the harp. The stage begins to
darken. The Sailors hesitate in fear.]

Second Sailor. He has put a sudden darkness over the
  moon.

Dectora. Nine swords with handles of rhinoceros horn
  To him that strikes him first!

First Sailor.       I will strike him first.

[He goes close up to Forgael with his sword lifted.]

[Shrinking back.] He has caught the crescent moon out
  of the sky,
  And carries it between us.

Second Sailor.       Holy fire
  To burn us to the marrow if we strike.

Dectora. Ill give a golden galley full of fruit,
  That has the heady flavour of new wine,
  To him that wounds him to the death.

First Sailor.          Ill do it.
  For all his spells will vanish when he dies,
  Having their life in him.

Second Sailor.    Though it be the moon
  That he is holding up between us there,
  I will strike at him.

The Others.      And I! And I! And I!

               [Forgael plays the harp.]

First Sailor [falling into a dream suddenly. But you were
  saying there is somebody
  Upon that other ship we are to wake.
  You did not know what brought him to his end,
  But it was sudden.

Second Sailor.  You are in the right;
  I had forgotten that we must go wake him.

Dectora. He has flung a Druid spell upon the air,
  And set you dreaming.

Second Sailor.    How can we have a wake
  When we have neither brown nor yellow ale?

First Sailor. I saw a flagon of brown ale aboard her.

Third Sailor. How can we raise the keen that do not
     know
  What name to call him by?

First Sailor.      Come to his ship.
  His name will come into our thoughts in a minute.
  I know that he died a thousand years ago,
  And has not yet been waked.

Second Sailor [beginning to keen]. Ohone! O! O! O!
  The yew-bough has been broken into two,
  And all the birds are scattered.

All the Sailors. O! O! O! O!

               [They go out keening.]

Dectora. Protect me now, gods that my people swear by.

[Aibric has risen from the deck where he had fallen. He
has begun looking for his sword as if in a dream.]

Aibric. Where is my sword that fell out of my hand
  When I first heard the news? Ah, there it is!

[He goes dreamily towards the sword, but Dectora runs at
it and takes it up before he can reach it.]

Aibric [sleepily]. Queen, give it me.

Dectora.          No, I have need of it.

Aibric. Why do you need a sword? But you may keep it.
  Now that hes dead I have no need of it,
  For everything is gone.

A Sailor [calling from the other ship]. Come hither, Aibric,
  And tell me who it is that we are waking.

Aibric [half to Dectora, half to himself]. What name had
  that dead king? Arthur of Britain?
  No, nonot Arthur. I remember now.
  It was golden-armed Iollan, and he died
  Broken-hearted, having lost his queen
  Through wicked spells. That is not all the tale,
  For he was killed. O! O! O! O! O! O!
  For golden-armed Iollan has been killed.

                      [He goes out.]
[While he has been speaking, and through part of what
follows, one hears the wailing of the Sailors from the
other ship. Dectora stands with the sword lifted in
front of Forgael.]

Dectora. I will end all your magic on the instant.

[Her voice hecomes dreamy, and she lowers the sword
slowly, and finally lets it fall. She spreads out her hair.
She takes off her crown and lays it upon the deck.]

  This sword is to lie beside him in the grave.
  It was in all his battles. I will spread my hair,
  And wring my hands, and wail him bitterly,
  For I have heard that he was proud and laughing,
  Blue-eyed, and a quick runner on bare feet,
  And that he died a thousand years ago.
  O; O! O! O!

          [Forgael changes the tune.]

  But no, that is not it.
  They killed him at my feet. O! O! O! O!
  For golden-armed Iollan that I loved-
  But what is it that made me say I loved him?
  It was that harper put it in my thoughts,
  But it is true. Why did they run upon him,
  And beat the golden helmet with their swords?

Forgael. Do you not know me, lady? I am he
  That you are weeping for.

Dectora.       No, for he is dead.
  O! O! O! O! for golden-armed Iollan.

Forgael. It was so given out, but I will prove
  That the grave-diggers in a dreamy frenzy
  Have buried nothing but my golden arms.
  Listen to that low-laughing string of the moon
  And you will recollect my face and voice,
  For you have listened to me playing it
  These thousand years.

[He starts up, listening to the birds. The harp slips from
his hands, and remains leaning against the bulwarks
behind him.]

  What are the birds at there?
  Why are they all a-flutter of a sudden?
  What are you calling out above the mast?
  If railing and reproach and mockery
  Because I have awakened her to love
  By magic strings, Ill make this answer to it:
  Being driven on by voices and by dreams
  That were clear messages from the Ever-living,
  I have done right. What could I but obey?
  And yet you make a clamour of reproach.

Dcctora [laughing]. Why, its a wonder out of reckoning
  That I should keen him from the full of the moon
  To the horn, and he be hale and hearty.

Forgael. How have I wronged her now that she is merry?
  But no, no, no! your cry is not against me.
  You know the counsels of the Ever-living,
  And all that tossing of your wings is joy,
  And all that murmurings but a marriage-song;
  But if it be reproach, I answer this:
  There is not one among you that made love
  by any other means. You call it passion,
  Consideration, generosity;
  But it was all deceit, and flattery
  To win a woman in her own despite,
  For love is war, and there is hatred in it;
  And if you say that she came willingly

Dectora. Why do you turn away and hide your face,
  That I would look upon for ever?

Forgael.            My grief!

Dectora. Have I not loved you for a thousand years?

Forgael. I never have been golden-armed Iollan.

Vectora. I do not understand. I know your face
  Better than my own hands.

Forgael.          I have deceived you
  Out of all reckoning.

Tectora.          Is it not tme
  That you were born a thousand years ago,
  In islands where the children of Aengus wind
  In happy dances under a windy moon,
  And that youll bring me there?

Forgael.          I have deceived you;
  I have deceived you utterly.

Dectora.          How can that be?
  Is it that though your eyes are full of love
  Some other woman has a claim on you,
  And Ive but half!

Forgael.     O no!

Dectora.          And if there is,
  If there be half a hundred more, what matter?
  Ill never give another thought to it;
  No, no, nor half a thought; but do not speak.
  Women are hard and proud and stubborn-hearted,
  Their heads being turned with praise and flattery;
  And that is why their lovers are afraid
  To tell them a plain story.

Forgael.          Thats not the story;
  But I have done so great a wrong against you,
  There is no measure that it would not burst.
  I will confess it all.

Dectora.       What do I care,
  Now that my body has begun to dream,
  And you have grown to be a burning sod
  In the imagination and intellect?
  If something thats most fabulous were true
  If you had taken me by magic spells,
  And killed a lover or husband at my feet
  I would not let you speak, for I would know
  That it was yesterday and not to-day
  I loved him; I would cover up my ears,
  As I am doing now. [A pause.] Why do you weep?

Forgael. I weep because Ive nothing for your eyes
  But desolate waters and a battered ship.

Dectora. O why do you not lift your eyes to mine?

Forgael. I weepI weep because bare nights above,
  And not a roof of ivory and gold.

Dectora. I would grow jealous of the ivory roof,
  And strike the golden pillars with my hands.
  I would that there was nothing in the world
  But my belovedthat night and day had perished,
  And all that is and all that is to be,
  All that is not the meeting of our lips.

Forgael. You turn away. Why do you turn away?
  Am I to fear the waves, or is the moon
  My enemy?

Dectora.  I looked upon the moon,
  Longing to knead and pull it into shape
  That I might lay it on your head as a crown.
  But now it is your thoughts that wander away,
  For you are looking at the sea. Do you not know
  How great a wrong it is to let ones thought
  Wander a moment when one is in love?

[He has moved away. She follows him. He is looking out
over the sea, shading his eyes.]

  Why are you looking at the sea?

Forgael.            Look there!

Dectora. What is there but a troop of ash-grey birds
  That fly into the west?

Forgael.       But listen, listen!

Dectora. What is there but the crying of the birds?

Forgael. If youll but listen closely to that crying
  Youll hear them calling out to one another
  With human voices

Dectora.     O, I can hear them now.
  What are they? Unto what country do they fly?

Forgael. To unimaginable happiness.
  They have been circling over our heads in the air,
  But now that they have taken to the road
  We have to follow, for they are our pilots;
  And though theyre but the colour of grey ash,
  Theyre crying out, could you but hear their words,
  There is a country at the end of the world
  Where no childs born but to outlive the moon.

[The Sailors comc in with Aibric. They are in great
excitement.]

First Sailor. The hold is full of treasure.

Second Sailor.         Full to the hatches.

First Sailor. Treasure on treasure.

Third Sailor.          Boxes of precious spice.

First Sailor. Ivory images with amethyst eyes.

Third Sailor. Dragons with eyes of ruby.

First Sailor.            The whole ship
  Flashes as if it were a net of herrings.

Third Sailor. Lets home; Id give some rubies to a
  woman.

Second Sailor. Theres somebody Id give the amethyst
  eyes to.

Aibric [silencing thcm with agesture]. We would return to
  our own country, Forgael,
  For we have found a treasure thats so great
  Imagination cannot reckon it.
  And having lit upon this woman there,
  What more have you to look for on the seas?

Forgael. I cannotI am going on to the end.
  As for this woman, I think she is coming with me.

Aibric. The Ever-living have made you mad; but no,
  It was this woman in her womans vengeance
  That drove you to it, and I fool enough
  To fancy that shed bring you home again.
  Twas you that egged him to it, for you know
  That he is being driven to his death.

Dectora. That is not true, for he has promised me
  An unimaginable happiness.

Aibric. And if that happiness be more than dreams,
  More than the froth, the feather, the dust-whirl,
  The crazy nothing that I think it is,
  It shall be in the country of the dead,
  If there be such a country.

Dectora.            No, not there,
  But in some island where the life of the world
  Leaps upward, as if all the streams o the world
  Had run into one fountain.

Aibric.          Speak to him.
  He knows that he is taking you to death;
  Speakhe will not deny it.

Dectora.          Is that true?

Forgael. I do not know for certain, but I know.
  That I have the best of pilots.

Aibric.        Shadows, illusions,
  That the Shape-changers, the Ever-laughing Ones,
  The Immortal Mockers have cast into his mind,
  Or called before his eyes.

Dectora.          O carry me
  To some sure country, some familiar place.
  Have we not everything that life can give
  In having one another?

Forgael.       How could I rest
  If I refused the messengers and pilots
  With all those sights and all that crying out?

Dectora. But I will cover up your eyes and ear?,
  That you may never hear the cry of the birds,
  Or look upon them.

Forgael.     Were they but lowlier
  Id do your will, but they are too hightoo high.

Dectora. Being too high, their heady prophecies
  But harry us with hopes that come to nothing,
  Because we are not proud, imperishable,
  Alone and winged.

Forgael.     Our love shall be like theirs
  When we have put their changeless image on.

Dectora. I am a woman, I die at every breath.

Aibric. Let the birds scatter, for the tree is broken,
  And theres no help in words. [To the Sailors.]

  To the other ship,
  And I will follow you and cut the rope
  When I have said farewell to this man here,
  For neither I nor any living man
  Will look upon his face again.

                 [The Sailors go out.]

Forgael [to Dectora], Go with him,
  For he will shelter you and bring you home.

Aibric [taking Forgaels hand]. Ill do it for his sake.

Dectora. No. Take this sword
  And cut the rope, for I go on with Forgael.

Aibric [half falling into the keen]. The yew-bough has been
  broken into two,
  And all the birds are scatteredO! O! O!
  Farewell! farewell! [He goes out.]

Dectora. The sword is in the rope
  The ropes in twoit falls into the sea,
  It whirls into the foam. O ancient worm,
  Dragon that loved the world and held us to it,
  You are broken, you are broken. The world drifts
     away,
  And I am left alone with my beloved,
  Who cannot put me from his sight for ever.
  We are alone for ever, and I laugh,
  Forgael, because you cannot put me from you.
  The mist has covered the heavens, and you and I
  Shall be alone for ever. We twothis crown
  I half remember. It has been in my dreams.
  Bend lower, O king, that I may crown you with it.
  O flower of the branch, 0 bird among the leaves,
  O silver fish that my two hands have taken
  Out of the running stream, O morning star
  Trembling in the blue heavens like a white fawn
  Upon the misty border of the wood,
  Bend lower, that I may cover you with my hair,
  For we will gaze upon this world no longer.

Forgael [gathering Dectoras hair about him]. Beloved, hav-
  ing dragged the net about us,
  And knitted mesh to mesh, we grow immortal;
  And that old harp awakens of itself
  To cry aloud to the grey birds, and dreams,
  That have had dreams for father, live in us.
  
~ William Butler Yeats, The Shadowy Waters - The Shadowy Waters
,
90:First Sailor. Has he not led us into these waste seas
  For long enough?

Second Sailor.  Aye, long and long enough.

First Sailor. We have not come upon a shore or ship
  These dozen weeks.

Second Sailor.  And I had thought to make
  A good round Sum upon this cruise, and turn -
  For I am getting on in life - to something
  That has less ups and downs than robbery.

First Sailor. I am so tired of being bachelor
  I could give all my heart to that Red Moll
  That had but the one eye.

Second Sailor.    Can no bewitchment
  Transform these rascal billows into women
  That I may drown myself?

First Sailor.     Better steer home,
  Whether he will or no; and better still
  To take him while he sleeps and carry him
  And drop him from the gunnel.

Second Sailor.       I dare not do it.
  Were't not that there is magic in his harp,
  I would be of your mind; but when he plays it
  Strange creatures flutter up before one's eyes,
  Or cry about one's ears.

First Sailor.     Nothing to fear.

Second Sailor. Do you remember when we sank that
     galley
  At the full moon?

First Sailor.  He played all through the night.

Second Sailor. Until the moon had set; and when I looked
  Where the dead drifted, I could see a bird
  Like a grey gull upon the breast of each.
  While I was looking they rose hurriedly,
  And after circling with strange cries awhile
  Flew westward; and many a time since then
  I've heard a rustling overhead in the wind.

First Sailor. I saw them on that night as well as you.
  But when I had eaten and drunk myself asleep
  My courage came again.

Second Sailor.    But that's not all.
  The other night, while he was playing it,
  A beautiful young man and girl came up
  In a white breaking wave; they had the look
  Of those that are alive for ever and ever.

First Sailor. I saw them, too, one night. Forgael was
     playing,
  And they were listening there& beyond the sail.
  He could not see them, but I held out my hands
  To grasp the woman.

Second Sailor.  You have dared to touch her?

First Sailor. O she was but a shadow, and slipped from
  me.

Second Sailor. But were you not afraid?

First Sailor.          Why should I fear?

Second Sailor. "Twas Aengus and Edain, the wandering
     lovers,
  To whom all lovers pray.

First Sailor.     But what of that?
  A shadow does not carry sword or spear.

Second Sailor. My mother told me that there is not one
  Of the Ever-living half so dangerous
  As that wild Aengus. Long before her day
  He carried Edain off from a king's house,
  And hid her among fruits of jewel-stone
  And in a tower of glass, and from that day
  Has hated every man that's not in love,
  And has been dangerous to him.

First Sailor.          I have heard
  He does not hate seafarers as he hates
  Peaceable men that shut the wind away,
  And keep to the one weary marriage-bed.

Second Sailor. I think that he has Forgael in his net,
  And drags him through the sea,

First Sailor        Well, net or none,
  I'd drown him while we have the chance to do it.

Second Sailor. It's certain I'd sleep easier o' nights
  If he were dead; but who will be our captain,
  Judge of the stars, and find a course for us?

First Sailor. I've thought of that. We must have Aibric
     with us,
  For he can judge the stars as well as Forgael.

                 [Going towards Aibric.]

  Become our captain, Aibric. I am resolved
  To make an end of Forgael while he sleeps.
  There's not a man but will be glad of it
  When it is over, nor one to grumble at us.

Aibric. You have taken pay and made your bargain for it.

First Sailor. What good is there in this hard way of
     living,
  Unless we drain more flagons in a year
  And kiss more lips than lasting peaceable men
  In their long lives? Will you be of our troop
  And take the captain's share of everything
  And bring us into populous seas again?

Aibric. Be of your troop! Aibric be one of you
  And Forgael in the other scale! kill Forgael,
  And he my master from my childhood up!
  If you will draw that sword out of its scabbard
  I'll give my answer.

First Sailor.  You have awakened him.

                 [To Second Sailor.]

  We'd better go, for we have lost this chance.

                 [They go out.]

Forgael. Have the birds passed us? I could hear your
     voice,
  But there were others.

Aibric.        I have seen nothing pass.

Forgael. You're certain of it? I never wake from sleep
  But that I am afraid they may have passed,
  For they're my only pilots. If I lost them
  Straying too far into the north or south,
  I'd never come upon the happiness
  That has been promised me. I have not seen them
  These many days; and yet there must be many
  Dying at every moment in the world,
  And flying towards their peace.

Aibric.          Put by these thoughts,
  And listen to me for a while. The sailors
  Are plotting for your death.

Forgael.          Have I not given
  More riches than they ever hoped to find?
  And now they will not follow, while I seek
  The only riches that have hit my fancy.

Aibric. What riches can you find in this waste sea
  Where no ship sails, where nothing that's alive
  Has ever come but those man-headed birds,
  Knowing it for the world's end?

Forgael.           Where the world ends
  The mind is made unchanging, for it finds
  Miracle, ecstasy, the impossible hope,
  The flagstone under all, the fire of fires,
  The roots of the world.

Aibric.        Shadows before now
  Have driven travellers mad for their own sport.

Forgael. Do you, too, doubt me? Have you joined their
     plot?

Aibric. No, no, do not say that. You know right well
  That I will never lift a hand against you.

Forgael. Why should you be more faithful than the rest,
  Being as doubtful?

Aibric.     I have called you master
  Too many years to lift a hand against you.

Forgael. Maybe it is but natural to doubt me.
  You've never known, I'd lay a wager on it,
  A melancholy that a cup of wine,
  A lucky battle, or a woman's kiss
  Could not amend.

Aibric.     I have good spirits enough.

Forgael. If you will give me all your mind awhile -
  All, all, the very bottom of the bowl -
  I'll show you that I am made differently,
  That nothing can amend it but these waters,
  Where I am rid of life - the events of the world -
  What do you call it? - that old promise-breaker,
  The cozening fortune-teller that comes whispering,
  "You will have all you have wished for when you have
     earned
  Land for your children or money in a pot.-
  And when we have it we are no happier,
  Because of that old draught under the door,
  Or creaky shoes. And at the end of all
  How are we better off than Seaghan the fool,
  That never did a hand's turn? Aibric! Aibric!
  We have fallen in the dreams the Ever-living
  Breathe on the burnished mirror of the world
  And then smooth out with ivory hands and sigh,
  And find their laughter sweeter to the taste
  For that brief sighing.

Aibric.       If you had loved some woman -

Forgael. You say that also? You have heard the voices,
  For that is what they say - all, all the shadows -
  Aengus and Edain, those passionate wanderers,
  And all the others; but it must be love
  As they have known it. Now the secret's out;
  For it is love that I am seeking for,
  But of a beautiful, unheard-of kind
  That is not in the world.

Aibric.        And yet the world
  Has beautiful women to please every man.

Forgael. But he that gets their love after the fashion
  "Loves in brief longing and deceiving hope
  And bodily tenderness, and finds that even
  The bed of love, that in the imagination
  Had seemed to be the giver of all peace,
  Is no more than a wine-cup in the tasting,
  And as soon finished.

Aibric.      All that ever loved
  Have loved that way - there is no other way.

Forgael. Yet never have two lovers kissed but they
  believed there was some other near at hand,
  And almost wept because they could not find it.

Aibric. When they have twenty years; in middle life
  They take a kiss for what a kiss is worth,
  And let the dream go by.

Forgael.          It's not a dream,
  But the reality that makes our passion
  As a lamp shadow - no - no lamp, the sun.
  What the world's million lips are thirsting for
  Must be substantial somewhere.

Aibric.          I have heard the Druids
  Mutter such things as they awake from trance.
  It may be that the Ever-living know it -
  No mortal can.

Forgael.  Yes; if they give us help.

Aibric. They are besotting you as they besot
  The crazy herdsman that will tell his fellows
  That he has been all night upon the hills,
  Riding to hurley, or in the battle-host
  With the Ever-living.

Forgael.      What if he speak the truth,
  And for a dozen hours have been a part
  Of that more powerful life?

Aibric,          His wife knows better.
  Has she not seen him lying like a log,
  Or fumbling in a dream about the house?
  And if she hear him mutter of wild riders,
  She knows that it was but the cart-horse coughing
  That set him to the fancy.

Forgael.        All would be well
  Could we but give us wholly to the dreams,
  And get into their world that to the sense
  Is shadow, and not linger wretchedly
  Among substantial things; for it is dreams
  That lift us to the flowing, changing world
  That the heart longs for. What is love itself,
  Even though it be the lightest of light love,
  But dreams that hurry from beyond the world
  To make low laughter more than meat and drink,
  Though it but set us sighing? Fellow-wanderer,
  Could we but mix ourselves into a dream,
  Not in its image on the mirror!

Aibric.            While
  We're in the body that's impossible.

Forgael. And yet I cannot think they're leading me
  To death; for they that promised to me love
  As those that can outlive the moon have known it, '
  Had the world's total life gathered up, it seemed,
  Into their shining limbs - I've had great teachers.
  Aengus and Edain ran up out of the wave -
  You'd never doubt that it was life they promised
  Had you looked on them face to face as I did,
  With so red lips, and running on such feet,
  And having such wide-open, shining eyes.

Aibric. It's certain they are leading you to death.
  None but the dead, or those that never lived,
  Can know that ecstasy. Forgael! Forgael!
  They have made you follow the man-headed birds,
  And you have told me that their journey lies
  Towards the country of the dead.

Forgael.            What matter
  If I am going to my death? - for there,
  Or somewhere, I shall find the love they have
     promised.
  That much is certain. I shall find a woman.
  One of the Ever-living, as I think -
  One of the Laughing People - and she and I
  Shall light upon a place in the world's core,
  Where passion grows to be a changeless thing,
  Like charmed apples made of chrysoprase,
  Or chrysoberyl, or beryl, or chrysclite;
  And there, in juggleries of sight and sense,
  Become one movement, energy, delight,
  Until the overburthened moon is dead.

                 [A number of Sailors enter hurriedly.]

First Sailor. Look there! there in the mist! a ship of spice!
  And we are almost on her!

Second Sailor.     We had not known
  But for the ambergris and sandalwood.

First Sailor. NO; but opoponax and cinnamon.

Forgael [taking the tiller from Aibric]. The Ever-living have
  kept my bargain for me,
  And paid you on the nail.

Aibric        Take up that rope
  To make her fast while we are plundering her.

First Sailor. There is a king and queen upon her deck,
  And where there is one woman there'll be others.
Aibric. Speak lower, or they'll hear.

First Sailor.            They cannot hear;
  They are too busy with each other. Look!
  He has stooped down and kissed her on the lips.

Second Sailor. When she finds out we have better men
     aboard
  She may not be too sorry in the end.

First Sailor. She will be like a wild cat; for these queens
  Care more about the kegs of silver and gold
  And the high fame that come to them in marriage,
  Than a strong body and a ready hand.

Second Sailor. There's nobody is natural but a robber,
  And that is why the world totters about
  Upon its bandy legs.

Aibric.        Run at them now,
  And overpower the crew while yet asleep!

                 [The Sailors go out.]

[Voices and the clashing of swords are heard from the
  other ship, which cannot be seen because of the sail.]

A Voice. Armed men have come upon us! O I am slain!

Another Voice. Wake all below!

Another Voice.  Why have you broken our sleep?

First Voice. Armed men have come upon us! O I am
     slain!

Forgael [who has remained at the tiller]. There! there they
  come! Gull, gannet, or diver,
  But with a man's head, or a fair woman's,
  They hover over the masthead awhile
  To wait their Fiends; but when their friends have
     come
  They'll fly upon that secret way of theirs.
  One - and one - a couple - five together;
  And I will hear them talking in a minute.
  Yes, voices! but I do not catch the words.
  Now I can hear. There's one of them that says,
  "How light we are, now we are changed to birds!'
  Another answers, "Maybe we shall find
  Our heart's desire now that we are so light.'
  And then one asks another how he died,
  And says, "A sword-blade pierced me in my sleep.-
  And now they all wheel suddenly and fly
  To the other side, and higher in the air.
  And now a laggard with a woman's head
  Comes crying, "I have run upon the sword.
  I have fled to my beloved in the air,
  In the waste of the high air, that we may wander
  Among the windy meadows of the dawn.'
  But why are they still waiting? why are they
  Circling and circling over the masthead?
  What power that is more mighty than desire
  To hurry to their hidden happiness
  Withholds them now? Have the Ever-living Ones
  A meaning in that circling overhead?
  But what's the meaning? [He cries out.] Why do you
     linger there?
  Why linger? Run to your desire,
  Are you not happy winged bodies now?

                 [His voice sinks again.]

  Being too busy in the air and the high air,
  They cannot hear my voice; but what's the meaning?

        [The Sailors have returned. Dectora is with them.]

Forgael [turning and seeing her]. Why are you standing
  with your eyes upon me?
  You are not the world's core. O no, no, no!
  That cannot be the meaning of the birds.
  You are not its core. My teeth are in the world,
  But have not bitten yet.

Dectora.       I am a queen,
  And ask for satisfaction upon these
  Who have slain my husband and laid hands upon me.

     [Breaking loose from the Sailors who are holding her.]

  Let go my hands!

Forgael.     Why do you cast a shadow?
  Where do you come from? Who brought you to this
     place?
  They would not send me one that casts a shadow.

Dectora. Would that the storm that overthrew my ships,
  And drowned the treasures of nine conquered nations,
  And blew me hither to my lasting sorrow,
  Had drowned me also. But, being yet alive,
  I ask a fitting punishment for all
  That raised their hands against him.

Forgael.               There are some
  That weigh and measure all in these waste seas -
  They that have all the wisdom that's in life,
  And all that prophesying images
  Made of dim gold rave out in secret tombs;
  They have it that the plans of kings and queens
  But laughter and tears - laughter, laughter, and tears;
  That every man should carry his own soul
  Upon his shoulders.

Dectora.     You've nothing but wild words,
  And I would know if you will give me vengeance.

Forgael. When she finds out I will not let her go -
  When she knows that.

Dectora. What is it that you are muttering -
  That you'll not let me go? I am a queen.

Forgael. Although you are more beautiful than any,
  I almost long that it were possible;
  But if I were to put you on that ship,
  With sailors that were sworn to do your will,
  And you had spread a sail for home, a wind
  Would rise of a sudden, or a wave so huge
  It had washed among the stars and put them out,
  And beat the bulwark of your ship on mine,
  Until you stood before me on the deck -
  As now.

Dectora.  Does wandering in these desolate seas
  And listening to the cry of wind and wave
  Bring madness?

Forgael.  Queen, I am not mad.

Dectora.              Yet say
  That unimaginable storms of wind and wave
  Would rise against me.

Forgael.       No, I am not mad -
  If it be not that hearing messages
  From lasting watchers, that outlive the moon,
  At the most quiet midnight is to be stricken.

Dectora. And did those watchers bid you take me
  captive?

Forgael.  Both you and I are taken in the net.
  It was their hands that plucked the winds awake
  And blew you hither; and their mouths have
     promised
  I shall have love in their immortal fashion;
  And for this end they gave me my old harp
  That is more mighty than the sun and moon,
  Or than the shivering casting-net of the stars,
  That none might take you from me.

Dectora [first trembling back from the mast where the harp is,
  and then laughing]. For a moment
  Your raving of a message and a harp
  More mighty than the stars half troubled me,
  But all that's raving. Who is there can compel
  The daughter and the granddaughter of kings
  To be his bedfellow?

Forgael.     Until your lips
  Have called me their beloved, I'll not kiss them.

Dectora. My husband and my king died at my feet,
  And yet you talk of love.

Forgael.        The movement of time
  Is shaken in these seas, and what one does
  One moment has no might upon the moment
  That follows after.

Dectora.     I understand you now.
  You have a Druid craft of wicked sound
  Wrung from the cold women of the sea -
  A magic that can call a demon up,
  Until my body give you kiss for kiss.

Forgael. Your soul shall give the kiss.

Dectora.            I am not afraid,
  While there's a rope to run into a noose
  Or wave to drown. But I have done with words,
  And I would have you look into my face
  And know that it is fearless.

Forgael.          Do what you will,
  For neither I nor you can break a mesh
  Of the great golden net that is about us.

Dectora. There's nothing in the world that's worth a
  fear.

[She passes Forgael and stands for a moment looking into
his face.]

  I have good reason for that thought.

[She runs suddenly on to the raised part of the poop.]

  And now
  I can put fear away as a queen should.

[She mounts on to the hulwark and turns towards
Forgael.]

  Fool, fool! Although you have looked into my face
  You do not see my purpose. I shall have gone
  Before a hand can touch me.

Forgael [folding his arms].   My hands are still;
  The Ever-living hold us. Do what you will,
  You cannot leap out of the golden net.

First Sailor. No need to drown, for, if you will pardon
     us
  And measure out a course and bring us home,
  We'll put this man to death.

Dectora.          I promise it.

First Sailor. There is none to take his side.

Aibric.          I am on his side,
  I'll strike a blow for him to give him time
  To cast his dreams away.

[Aibric goes in front of Forgael with drawn sword. For-
gael takes the harp.]

First Sailor.       No other'll do it.

[The Sailors throw Aibric on one side. He falls and lies
upon the deck. They lift their swords to strike Forgael,
who is about to play the harp. The stage begins to
darken. The Sailors hesitate in fear.]

Second Sailor. He has put a sudden darkness over the
  moon.

Dectora. Nine swords with handles of rhinoceros horn
  To him that strikes him first!

First Sailor.       I will strike him first.

[He goes close up to Forgael with his sword lifted.]

[Shrinking back.] He has caught the crescent moon out
  of the sky,
  And carries it between us.

Second Sailor.       Holy fire
  To burn us to the marrow if we strike.

Dectora. I'll give a golden galley full of fruit,
  That has the heady flavour of new wine,
  To him that wounds him to the death.

First Sailor.          I'll do it.
  For all his spells will vanish when he dies,
  Having their life in him.

Second Sailor.    Though it be the moon
  That he is holding up between us there,
  I will strike at him.

The Others.      And I! And I! And I!

               [Forgael plays the harp.]

First Sailor [falling into a dream suddenly. But you were
  saying there is somebody
  Upon that other ship we are to wake.
  You did not know what brought him to his end,
  But it was sudden.

Second Sailor.  You are in the right;
  I had forgotten that we must go wake him.

Dectora. He has flung a Druid spell upon the air,
  And set you dreaming.

Second Sailor.    How can we have a wake
  When we have neither brown nor yellow ale?

First Sailor. I saw a flagon of brown ale aboard her.

Third Sailor. How can we raise the keen that do not
     know
  What name to call him by?

First Sailor.      Come to his ship.
  His name will come into our thoughts in a minute.
  I know that he died a thousand years ago,
  And has not yet been waked.

Second Sailor[beginning to keen]. Ohone! O! O! O!
  The yew-bough has been broken into two,
  And all the birds are scattered.

All the Sailors. O! O! O! O!

               [They go out keening.]

Dectora. Protect me now, gods that my people swear by.

[Aibric has risen from the deck where he had fallen. He
has begun looking for his sword as if in a dream.]

Aibric. Where is my sword that fell out of my hand
  When I first heard the news? Ah, there it is!

[He goes dreamily towards the sword, but Dectora runs at
it and takes it up before he can reach it.]

Aibric [sleepily]. Queen, give it me.

Dectora.         No, I have need of it.

Aibric. Why do you need a sword? But you may keep it.
  Now that he's dead I have no need of it,
  For everything is gone.

A Sailor [calling from the other ship]. Come hither, Aibric,
  And tell me who it is that we are waking.

Aibric [half to Dectora, half to himself]. What name had
  that dead king? Arthur of Britain?
  No, no - not Arthur. I remember now.
  It was golden-armed Iollan, and he died
  Broken-hearted, having lost his queen
  Through wicked spells. That is not all the tale,
  For he was killed. O! O! O! O! O! O!
  For golden-armed Iollan has been killed.

                      [He goes out.]
[While he has been speaking, and through part of what
follows, one hears the wailing of the Sailors from the
other ship. Dectora stands with the sword lifted in
front of Forgael.]

Dectora. I will end all your magic on the instant.

[Her voice becomes dreamy, and she lowers the sword
slowly, and finally lets it fall. She spreads out her hair.
She takes off her crown and lays it upon the deck.]

  This sword is to lie beside him in the grave.
  It was in all his battles. I will spread my hair,
  And wring my hands, and wail him bitterly,
  For I have heard that he was proud and laughing,
  Blue-eyed, and a quick runner on bare feet,
  And that he died a thousand years ago.
  O; O! O! O!

          [Forgael changes the tune.]

  But no, that is not it.
  They killed him at my feet. O! O! O! O!
  For golden-armed Iollan that I loved-
  But what is it that made me say I loved him?
  It was that harper put it in my thoughts,
  But it is true. Why did they run upon him,
  And beat the golden helmet with their swords?

Forgael. Do you not know me, lady? I am he
  That you are weeping for.

Dectora.       No, for he is dead.
  O! O! O! O! for golden-armed Iollan.

Forgael. It was so given out, but I will prove
  That the grave-diggers in a dreamy frenzy
  Have buried nothing but my golden arms.
  Listen to that low-laughing string of the moon
  And you will recollect my face and voice,
  For you have listened to me playing it
  These thousand years.

[He starts up, listening to the birds. The harp slips from
his hands, and remains leaning against the bulwarks
behind him.]

  What are the birds at there?
  Why are they all a-flutter of a sudden?
  What are you calling out above the mast?
  If railing and reproach and mockery
  Because I have awakened her to love
  By magic strings, I'll make this answer to it:
  Being driven on by voices and by dreams
  That were clear messages from the Ever-living,
  I have done right. What could I but obey?
  And yet you make a clamour of reproach.

Dectora [laughing]. Why, it's a wonder out of reckoning
  That I should keen him from the full of the moon
  To the horn, and he be hale and hearty.

Forgael. How have I wronged her now that she is merry?
  But no, no, no! your cry is not against me.
  You know the counsels of the Ever-living,
  And all that tossing of your wings is joy,
  And all that murmuring's but a marriage-song;
  But if it be reproach, I answer this:
  There is not one among you that made love
  by any other means. You call it passion,
  Consideration, generosity;
  But it was all deceit, and flattery
  To win a woman in her own despite,
  For love is war, and there is hatred in it;
  And if you say that she came willingly -

Dectora. Why do you turn away and hide your face,
  That I would look upon for ever?

Forgael.            My grief!

Dectora. Have I not loved you for a thousand years?

Forgael. I never have been golden-armed Iollan.

Vectora. I do not understand. I know your face
  Better than my own hands.

Forgael.          I have deceived you
  Out of all reckoning.

Tectora.          Is it not time
  That you were born a thousand years ago,
  In islands where the children of Aengus wind
  In happy dances under a windy moon,
  And that you'll bring me there?

Forgael.          I have deceived you;
  I have deceived you utterly.

Dectora.          How can that be?
  Is it that though your eyes are full of love
  Some other woman has a claim on you,
  And I've but half!

Forgael.     O no!

Dectora.          And if there is,
  If there be half a hundred more, what matter?
  I'll never give another thought to it;
  No, no, nor half a thought; but do not speak.
  Women are hard and proud and stubborn-hearted,
  Their heads being turned with praise and flattery;
  And that is why their lovers are afraid
  To tell them a plain story.

Forgael.          That's not the story;
  But I have done so great a wrong against you,
  There is no measure that it would not burst.
  I will confess it all.

Dectora.       What do I care,
  Now that my body has begun to dream,
  And you have grown to be a burning sod
  In the imagination and intellect?
  If something that's most fabulous were true -
  If you had taken me by magic spells,
  And killed a lover or husband at my feet -
  I would not let you speak, for I would know
  That it was yesterday and not to-day
  I loved him; I would cover up my ears,
  As I am doing now. [A pause.] Why do you weep?

Forgael. I weep because I've nothing for your eyes
  But desolate waters and a battered ship.

Dectora. O why do you not lift your eyes to mine?

Forgael. I weep - I weep because bare night's above,
  And not a roof of ivory and gold.

Dectora. I would grow jealous of the ivory roof,
  And strike the golden pillars with my hands.
  I would that there was nothing in the world
  But my beloved - that night and day had perished,
  And all that is and all that is to be,
  All that is not the meeting of our lips.

Forgael. You turn away. Why do you turn away?
  Am I to fear the waves, or is the moon
  My enemy?

Dectora.  I looked upon the moon,
  Longing to knead and pull it into shape
  That I might lay it on your head as a crown.
  But now it is your thoughts that wander away,
  For you are looking at the sea. Do you not know
  How great a wrong it is to let one's thought
  Wander a moment when one is in love?

[He has moved away. She follows him. He is looking out
over the sea, shading his eyes.]

  Why are you looking at the sea?

Forgael.            Look there!

Dectora. What is there but a troop of ash-grey birds
  That fly into the west?

Forgael.       But listen, listen!

Dectora. What is there but the crying of the birds?

Forgael. If you'll but listen closely to that crying
  You'll hear them calling out to one another
  With human voices

Dectora.     O, I can hear them now.
  What are they? Unto what country do they fly?

Forgael. To unimaginable happiness.
  They have been circling over our heads in the air,
  But now that they have taken to the road
  We have to follow, for they are our pilots;
  And though they're but the colour of grey ash,
  They're crying out, could you but hear their words,
  "There is a country at the end of the world
  Where no child's born but to outlive the moon.'

[The Sailors come in with Aibric. They are in great
excitement.]

First Sailor. The hold is full of treasure.

Second Sailor.         Full to the hatches.

First Sailor. Treasure on treasure.

Third Sailor.          Boxes of precious spice.

First Sailor. Ivory images with amethyst eyes.

Third Sailor. Dragons with eyes of ruby.

First Sailor.            The whole ship
  Flashes as if it were a net of herrings.

Third Sailor. Let's home; I'd give some rubies to a
  woman.

Second Sailor. There's somebody I'd give the amethyst
  eyes to.

Aibric [silencing them with agesture]. We would return to
  our own country, Forgael,
  For we have found a treasure that's so great
  Imagination cannot reckon it.
  And having lit upon this woman there,
  What more have you to look for on the seas?

Forgael. I cannot - I am going on to the end.
  As for this woman, I think she is coming with me.

Aibric. The Ever-living have made you mad; but no,
  It was this woman in her woman's vengeance
  That drove you to it, and I fool enough
  To fancy that she'd bring you home again.
  'Twas you that egged him to it, for you know
  That he is being driven to his death.

Dectora. That is not true, for he has promised me
  An unimaginable happiness.

Aibric. And if that happiness be more than dreams,
  More than the froth, the feather, the dust-whirl,
  The crazy nothing that I think it is,
  It shall be in the country of the dead,
  If there be such a country.

Dectora.            No, not there,
  But in some island where the life of the world
  Leaps upward, as if all the streams o' the world
  Had run into one fountain.

Aibric.          Speak to him.
  He knows that he is taking you to death;
  Speak - he will not deny it.

Dectora.          Is that true?

Forgael. I do not know for certain, but I know.
  That I have the best of pilots.

Aibric.        Shadows, illusions,
  That the Shape-changers, the Ever-laughing Ones,
  The Immortal Mockers have cast into his mind,
  Or called before his eyes.

Dectora.          O carry me
  To some sure country, some familia'r place.
  Have we not everything that life can give
  In having one another?

Forgael.       How could I rest
  If I refused the messengers and pilots
  With all those sights and all that crying out?

Dectora. But I will cover up your eyes and ear?,
  That you may never hear the cry of the birds,
  Or look upon them.

Forgael.     Were they but lowlier
  I'd do your will, but they are too high - too high.

Dectora. Being too high, their heady prophecies
  But harry us with hopes that come to nothing,
  Because we are not proud, imperishable,
  Alone and winged.

Forgael.     Our love shall be like theirs
  When we have put their changeless image on.

Dectora. I am a woman, I die at every breath.

Aibric. Let the birds scatter, for the tree is broken,
  And there's no help in words. [To the Sailors.]

  To the other ship,
  And I will follow you and cut the rope
  When I have said farewell to this man here,
  For neither I nor any living man
  Will look upon his face again.

                 [The Sailors go out.]

Forgael [to Dectora], Go with him,
  For he will shelter you and bring you home.

Aibric [taking Forgael's hand]. I'll do it for his sake.

Dectora. No. Take this sword
  And cut the rope, for I go on with Forgael.

Aibric [half falling into the keen]. The yew-bough has been
  broken into two,
  And all the birds are scattered - O! O! O!
  Farewell! farewell! [He goes out.]

Dectora. The sword is in the rope -
  The rope's in two - it falls into the sea,
  It whirls into the foam. O ancient worm,
  Dragon that loved the world and held us to it,
  You are broken, you are broken. The world drifts
     away,
  And I am left alone with my beloved,
  Who cannot put me from his sight for ever.
  We are alone for ever, and I laugh,
  Forgael, because you cannot put me from you.
  The mist has covered the heavens, and you and I
  Shall be alone for ever. We two - this crown -
  I half remember. It has been in my dreams.
  Bend lower, O king, that I may crown you with it.
  O flower of the branch, 0 bird among the leaves,
  O silver fish that my two hands have taken
  Out of the running stream, O morning star
  Trembling in the blue heavens like a white fawn
  Upon the misty border of the wood,
  Bend lower, that I may cover you with my hair,
  For we will gaze upon this world no longer.

Forgael [gathering Dectora's hair about him]. Beloved, hav-
  ing dragged the net about us,
  And knitted mesh to mesh, we grow immortal;
  And that old harp awakens of itself
  To cry aloud to the grey birds, and dreams,
  That have had dreams for father, live in us.
The deck of an ancient ship. At the right of the stage is the mast,
with a large square sail hiding a great deal of the sky and sea
on that side. The tiller is at the left of the stage; it is a long oar
coming through an opening in the bulwark. The deck rises in a
series of steps behind the tiller, and the stern of the ship curves
overhead. When the play opens there are four persons upon the
deck. Aibric stands by the tiller. Forgael sleeps upon the raised
portion of the deck towards the front of the stage. Two Sailors
are standing near to the mast, on which a harp is hanging.
~ William Butler Yeats, A Dramatic Poem
,
91:Scene. Salzburg; a cell in the Hospital of St. Sebastian. 1541.
Festus, Paracelsus.
Festus.
No change! The weary night is well-nigh spent,
The lamp burns low, and through the casement-bars
Grey morning glimmers feebly: yet no change!
Another night, and still no sigh has stirred
That fallen discoloured mouth, no pang relit
Those fixed eyes, quenched by the decaying body,
Like torch-flame choked in dust. While all beside
Was breaking, to the last they held out bright,
As a stronghold where life intrenched itself;
But they are dead nowvery blind and dead:
He will drowse into death without a groan.
My Aureolemy forgotten, ruined Aureole!
The days are gone, are gone! How grand thou wast!
And now not one of those who struck thee down
Poor glorious spiritconcerns him even to stay
And satisfy himself his little hand
Could turn God's image to a livid thing.
Another night, and yet no change! 'T is much
That I should sit by him, and bathe his brow,
And chafe his hands; 't is much: but he will sure
Know me, and look on me, and speak to me
Once morebut only once! His hollow cheek
Looked all night long as though a creeping laugh
At his own state were just about to break
From the dying man: my brain swam, my throat swelled,
And yet I could not turn away. In truth,
They told me how, when first brought here, he seemed
Resolved to live, to lose no faculty;
Thus striving to keep up his shattered strength,
Until they bore him to this stifling cell:
When straight his features fell, an hour made white
The flushed face, and relaxed the quivering limb,
Only the eye remained intense awhile
As though it recognized the tomb-like place,
And then he lay as here he lies.
                 Ay, here!
Here is earth's noblest, nobly garlanded
Her bravest champion with his well-won prize
Her best achievement, her sublime amends
For countless generations fleeting fast
And followed by no trace;the creature-god
She instances when angels would dispute
The title of her brood to rank with them.
Angels, this is our angel! Those bright forms
We clothe with purple, crown and call to thrones,
Are human, but not his; those are but men
Whom other men press round and kneel before;
Those palaces are dwelt in by mankind;
Higher provision is for him you seek
Amid our pomps and glories: see it here!
Behold earth's paragon! Now, raise thee, clay!
God! Thou art love! I build my faith on that
Even as I watch beside thy tortured child
Unconscious whose hot tears fall fast by him,
So doth thy right hand guide us through the world
Wherein we stumble. God! what shall we say?
How has he sinned? How else should he have done?
Surely he sought thy praisethy praise, for all
He might be busied by the task so much
As half forget awhile its proper end.
Dost thou well, Lord? Thou canst not but prefer
That I should range myself upon his side
How could he stop at every step to set
Thy glory forth? Hadst thou but granted him
Success, thy honour would have crowned success,
A halo round a star. Or, say he erred,
Save him, dear God; it will be like thee: bathe him
In light and life! Thou art not made like us;
We should be wroth in such a case; but thou
Forgivestso, forgive these passionate thoughts
Which come unsought and will not pass away!
I know thee, who hast kept my path, and made
Light for me in the darkness, tempering sorrow
So that it reached me like a solemn joy;
It were too strange that I should doubt thy love.
But what am I? Thou madest him and knowest
How he was fashioned. I could never err
That way: the quiet place beside thy feet,
Reserved for me, was ever in my thoughts:
But hethou shouldst have favoured him as well!
Ah! he wakens! Aureole, I am here! 't is Festus!
I cast away all wishes save one wish
Let him but know me, only speak to me!
He mutters; louder and louder; any other
Than I, with brain less laden, could collect
What he pours forth. Dear Aureole, do but look!
Is it talking or singing, this he utters fast?
Misery that he should fix me with his eye,
Quick talking to some other all the while!
If he would husband this wild vehemence
Which frustrates its intent!I heard, I know
I heard my name amid those rapid words.
Oh, he will know me yet! Could I divert
This current, lead it somehow gently back
Into the channels of the past!His eye
Brighter than ever! It must recognize me!
I am Erasmus: I am here to pray
That Paracelsus use his skill for me.
The schools of Paris and of Padua send
These questions for your learning to resolve.
We are your students, noble master: leave
This wretched cell, what business have you here?
Our class awaits you; come to us once more!
(O agony! the utmost I can do
Touches him not; how else arrest his ear?)
I am commissioned . . . I shall craze like him.
Better be mute and see what God shall send.
Paracelsus.
Stay, stay with me!
Festus.
          I will; I am come here
To stay with youFestus, you loved of old;
Festus, you know, you must know!
Paracelsus.
                 Festus! Where's
Aprile, then? Has he not chanted softly
The melodies I heard all night? I could not
Get to him for a cold hand on my breast,
But I made out his music well enough,
O well enough! If they have filled him full
With magical music, as they freight a star
With light, and have remitted all his sin,
They will forgive me too, I too shall know!
Festus.
Festus, your Festus!
Paracelsus.
           Ask him if Aprile
Knows as he Lovesif I shall Love and Know?
I try; but that cold hand, like leadso cold!
Festus.
My hand, see!
Paracelsus.
       Ah, the curse, Aprile, Aprile!
We get so nearso very, very near!
'T is an old tale: Jove strikes the Titans down,
Not when they set about their mountain-piling
But when another rock would crown the work.
And Phaetondoubtless his first radiant plunge
Astonished mortals, though the gods were calm,
And Jove prepared his thunder: all old tales!
Festus.
And what are these to you?
Paracelsus.
              Ay, fiends must laugh
So cruelly, so well! most like I never
Could tread a single pleasure underfoot,
But they were grinning by my side, were chuckling
To see me toil and drop away by flakes!
Hell-spawn! I am glad, most glad, that thus I fail!
Your cunning has o'ershot its aim. One year,
One month, perhaps, and I had served your turn!
You should have curbed your spite awhile. But now,
Who will believe 't was you that held me back?
Listen: there's shame and hissing and contempt,
And none but laughs who names me, none but spits
Measureless scorn upon me, me alone,
The quack, the cheat, the liar,all on me!
And thus your famous plan to sink mankind
In silence and despair, by teaching them
One of their race had probed the inmost truth,
Had done all man could do, yet failed no less
Your wise plan proves abortive. Men despair?
Ha, ha! why, they are hooting the empiric,
The ignorant and incapable fool who rushed
Madly upon a work beyond his wits;
Nor doubt they but the simplest of themselves
Could bring the matter to triumphant issue.
So, pick and choose among them all, accursed!
Try now, persuade some other to slave for you,
To ruin body and soul to work your ends!
No, no; I am the first and last, I think.
Festus.
Dear friend, who are accursed? who has done
Paracelsus.
What have I done? Fiends dare ask that? or you,
Brave men? Oh, you can chime in boldly, backed
By the others! What had you to do, sage peers?
Here stand my rivals; Latin, Arab, Jew,
Greek, join dead hands against me: all I ask
Is, that the world enrol my name with theirs,
And even this poor privilege, it seems,
They range themselves, prepared to disallow.
Only observe! why, fiends may learn from them!
How they talk calmly of my throes, my fierce
Aspirings, terrible watchings, each one claiming
Its price of blood and brain; how they dissect
And sneeringly disparage the few truths
Got at a life's cost; they too hanging the while
About my neck, their lies misleading me
And their dead names browbeating me! Grey crew,
Yet steeped in fresh malevolence from hell,
Is there a reason for your hate? My truths
Have shaken a little the palm about each prince?
Just think, Aprile, all these leering dotards
Were bent on nothing less than to be crowned
As we! That yellow blear-eyed wretch in chief
To whom the rest cringe low with feigned respect,
Galen of Pergamos and hellnay speak
The tale, old man! We met there face to face:
I said the crown should fall from thee. Once more
We meet as in that ghastly vestibule:
Look to my brow! Have I redeemed my pledge?
Festus.
Peace, peace; ah, see!
Paracelsus.
           Oh, emptiness of fame!
Oh Persic Zoroaster, lord of stars!
Who said these old renowns, dead long ago,
Could make me overlook the living world
To gaze through gloom at where they stood, indeed,
But stand no longer? What a warm light life
After the shade! In truth, my delicate witch,
My serpent-queen, you did but well to hide
The juggles I had else detected. Fire
May well run harmless o'er a breast like yours!
The cave was not so darkened by the smoke
But that your white limbs dazzled me: oh, white,
And panting as they twinkled, wildly dancing!
I cared not for your passionate gestures then,
But now I have forgotten the charm of charms,
The foolish knowledge which I came to seek,
While I remember that quaint dance; and thus
I am come back, not for those mummeries,
But to love you, and to kiss your little feet
Soft as an ermine's winter coat!
Festus.
                 A light
Will struggle through these thronging words at last.
As in the angry and tumultuous West
A soft star trembles through the drifting clouds.
These are the strivings of a spirit which hates
So sad a vault should coop it, and calls up
The past to stand between it and its fate.
Were he at Einsiedelnor Michal here!
Paracelsus.
Cruel! I seek her nowI kneelI shriek
I clasp her vesturebut she fades, still fades;
And she is gone; sweet human love is gone!
'T is only when they spring to heaven that angels
Reveal themselves to you; they sit all day
Beside you, and lie down at night by you
Who care not for their presence, muse or sleep,
And all at once they leave you, and you know them!
We are so fooled, so cheated! Why, even now
I am not too secure against foul play;
The shadows deepen and the walls contract:
No doubt some treachery is going on.
'T is very dusk. Where are we put, Aprile?
Have they left us in the lurch? This murky loathsome
Death-trap, this slaughter-house, is not the hall
In the golden city! Keep by me, Aprile!
There is a hand groping amid the blackness
To catch us. Have the spider-fingers got you,
Poet? Hold on me for your life! If once
They pull you!Hold!
           'Tis but a dreamno more!
I have you still; the sun comes out again;
Let us be happy: all will yet go well!
Let us confer: is it not like, Aprile,
That spite of trouble, this ordeal passed,
The value of my labours ascertained,
Just as some stream foams long among the rocks
But after glideth glassy to the sea,
So, full content shall henceforth be my lot?
What think you, poet? Louder! Your clear voice
Vibrates too like a harp-string. Do you ask
How could I still remain on earth, should God
Grant me the great approval which I seek?
I, you, and God can comprehend each other,
But men would murmur, and with cause enough;
For when they saw me, stainless of all sin,
Preserved and sanctified by inward light,
They would complain that comfort, shut from them,
I drank thus unespied; that they live on,
Nor taste the quiet of a constant joy,
For ache and care and doubt and weariness,
While I am calm; help being vouchsafed to me,
And hid from them.'T were best consider that!
You reason well, Aprile; but at least
Let me know this, and die! Is this too much?
I will learn this, if God so please, and die!
If thou shalt please, dear God, if thou shalt please!
We are so weak, we know our motives least
In their confused beginning. If at first
I sought . . . but wherefore bare my heart to thee?
I know thy mercy; and already thoughts
Flock fast about my soul to comfort it,
And intimate I cannot wholly fail,
For love and praise would clasp me willingly
Could I resolve to seek them. Thou art good,
And I should be content. Yetyet first show
I have done wrong in daring! Rather give
The supernatural consciousness of strength
Which fed my youth! Only one hour of that
With thee to helpO what should bar me then!
Lost, lost! Thus things are ordered here! God's creatures,
And yet he takes no pride in us!none, none!
Truly there needs another life to come!
If this be all(I must tell Festus that)
And other life await us notfor one,
I say 't is a poor cheat, a stupid bungle,
A wretched failure. I, for one, protest
Against it, and I hurl it back with scorn.
Well, onward though alone! Small time remains,
And much to do: I must have fruit, must reap
Some profit from my toils. I doubt my body
Will hardly serve me through; while I have laboured
It has decayed; and now that I demand
Its best assistance, it will crumble fast:
A sad thought, a sad fate! How very full
Of wormwood 't is, that just at altar-service,
The rapt hymn rising with the rolling smoke,
When glory dawns and all is at the best,
The sacred fire may flicker and grow faint
And die for want of a wood-piler's help!
Thus fades the flagging body, and the soul
Is pulled down in the overthrow. Well, well
Let men catch every word, let them lose nought
Of what I say; something may yet be done.
They are ruins! Trust me who am one of you!
All ruins, glorious once, but lonely now.
It makes my heart sick to behold you crouch
Beside your desolate fane: the arches dim,
The crumbling columns grand against the moon,
Could I but rear them up once morebut that
May never be, so leave them! Trust me, friends,
Why should you linger here when I have built
A far resplendent temple, all your own?
Trust me, they are but ruins! See, Aprile,
Men will not heed! Yet were I not prepared
With better refuge for them, tongue of mine
Should ne'er reveal how blank their dwelling is:
I would sit down in silence with the rest.
Ha, what? you spit at me, you grin and shriek
Contempt into my earmy ear which drank
God's accents once? you curse me? Why men, men,
I am not formed for it! Those hideous eyes
Will be before me sleeping, waking, praying,
They will not let me even die. Spare, spare me,
Sinning or no, forget that, only spare me
The horrible scorn! You thought I could support it.
But now you see what silly fragile creature
Cowers thus. I am not good nor bad enough,
Not Christ nor Cain, yet even Cain was saved
From Hate like this. Let me but totter back!
Perhaps I shall elude those jeers which creep
Into my very brain, and shut these scorched
Eyelids and keep those mocking faces out.
Listen, Aprile! I am very calm:
Be not deceived, there is no passion here
Where the blood leaps like an imprisoned thing:
I am calm: I will exterminate the race!
Enough of that: 't is said and it shall be.
And now be merry: safe and sound am I
Who broke through their best ranks to get at you.
And such a havoc, such a rout, Aprile!
Festus.
Have you no thought, no memory for me,
Aureole? I am so wretchedmy pure Michal
Is gone, and you alone are left me now,
And even you forget me. Take my hand
Lean on me thus. Do you not know me, Aureole?
Paracelsus.
Festus, my own friend, you are come at last?
As you say, 't is an awful enterprise;
But you believe I shall go through with it:
'T is like you, and I thank you. Thank him for me,
Dear Michal! See how bright St. Saviour's spire
Flames in the sunset; all its figures quaint
Gay in the glancing light: you might conceive them
A troop of yellow-vested white-haired Jews
Bound for their own land where redemption dawns.
Festus.
Not that blest timenot our youth's time, dear God!
Paracelsus.
Hastay! true, I forgetall is done since,
And he is come to judge me. How he speaks,
How calm, how well! yes, it is true, all true;
All quackery; all deceit; myself can laugh
The first at it, if you desire: but still
You know the obstacles which taught me tricks
So foreign to my natureenvy and hate,
Blind opposition, brutal prejudice,
Bald ignorancewhat wonder if I sunk
To humour men the way they most approved?
My cheats were never palmed on such as you,
Dear Festus! I will kneel if you require me,
Impart the meagre knowledge I possess,
Explain its bounded nature, and avow
My insufficiencywhate'er you will:
I give the fight up: let there be an end,
A privacy, an obscure nook for me.
I want to be forgotten even by God.
But if that cannot be, dear Festus, lay me,
When I shall die, within some narrow grave,
Not by itselffor that would be too proud
But where such graves are thickest; let it look
Nowise distinguished from the hillocks round,
So that the peasant at his brother's bed
May tread upon my own and know it not;
And we shall all be equal at the last,
Or classed according to life's natural ranks,
Fathers, sons, brothers, friendsnot rich, nor wise,
Nor gifted: lay me thus, then say, "He lived
"Too much advanced before his brother men;
"They kept him still in front: 't was for their good
"But yet a dangerous station. It were strange
"That he should tell God he had never ranked
"With men: so, here at least he is a man."
Festus.
That God shall take thee to his breast, dear spirit,
Unto his breast, be sure! and here on earth
Shall splendour sit upon thy name for ever.
Sun! all the heaven is glad for thee: what care
If lower mountains light their snowy phares
At thine effulgence, yet acknowledge not
The source of day? Their theft shall be their bale:
For after-ages shall retrack thy beams,
And put aside the crowd of busy ones
And worship thee alonethe master-mind,
The thinker, the explorer, the creator!
Then, who should sneer at the convulsive throes
With which thy deeds were born, would scorn as well
The sheet of winding subterraneous fire
Which, pent and writhing, sends no less at last
Huge islands up amid the simmering sea.
Behold thy might in me! thou hast infused
Thy soul in mine; and I am grand as thou,
Seeing I comprehend theeI so simple,
Thou so august. I recognize thee first;
I saw thee rise, I watched thee early and late,
And though no glance reveal thou dost accept
My homagethus no less I proffer it,
And bid thee enter gloriously thy rest.
Paracelsus.
Festus!
Festus.
   I am for noble Aureole, God!
I am upon his side, come weal or woe.
His portion shall be mine. He has done well.
I would have sinned, had I been strong enough,
As he has sinned. Reward him or I waive
Reward! If thou canst find no place for him,
He shall be king elsewhere, and I will be
His slave for ever. There are two of us.
Paracelsus.
Dear Festus!
Festus.
      Here, dear Aureole! ever by you!
      Paracelsus.
Nay, speak on, or I dream again. Speak on!
Some story, anythingonly your voice.
I shall dream else. Speak on! ay, leaning so!
Festus.
                         Thus the Mayne glideth
Where my Love abideth.
Sleep's no softer: it proceeds
On through lawns, on through meads,
On and on, whate'er befall,
Meandering and musical,
Though the ****rd pasturage
Bears not on its shaven ledge
Aught but weeds and waving grasses
To view the river as it passes,
Save here and there a scanty patch
Of primroses too faint to catch
A weary bee.
Paracelsus.
More, more; say on!
Festus.
          And scarce it pushes
Its gentle way through strangling rushes
Where the glossy kingfisher
Flutters when noon-heats are near,
Glad the shelving banks to shun,
Red and steaming in the sun,
Where the shrew-mouse with pale throat
Burrows, and the speckled stoat;
Where the quick sandpipers flit
In and out the marl and grit
That seems to breed them, brown as they:
Nought disturbs its quiet way,
Save some lazy stork that springs,
Trailing it with legs and wings,
Whom the shy fox from the hill
Rouses, creep he ne'er so still.
Paracelsus.
My heart! they loose my heart, those simple words;
Its darkness passes, which nought else could touch:
Like some dark snake that force may not expel,
Which glideth out to music sweet and low.
What were you doing when your voice broke through
A chaos of ugly images? You, indeed!
Are you alone here?
Festus.
          All alone: you know me?
This cell?
Paracelsus.
     An unexceptionable vault:
Good brick and stone: the bats kept out, the rats
Kept in: a snug nook: how should I mistake it?
Festus.
But wherefore am I here?
Paracelsus.
             Ah, well remembered!
Why, for a purposefor a purpose, Festus!
'T is like me: here I trifle while time fleets,
And this occasion, lost, will ne'er return.
You are here to be instructed. I will tell
God's message; but I have so much to say,
I fear to leave half out. All is confused
No doubt; but doubtless you will learn in time.
He would not else have brought you here: no doubt
I shall see clearer soon.
Festus.
             Tell me but this
You are not in despair?
Paracelsus.
            I? and for what?
            Festus.
Alas, alas! he knows not, as I feared!
Paracelsus.
What is it you would ask me with that earnest
Dear searching face?
Festus.
           How feel you, Aureole?
           Paracelsus.
                       Well:
Well. 'T is a strange thing: I am dying, Festus,
And now that fast the storm of life subsides,
I first perceive how great the whirl has been.
I was calm then, who am so dizzy now
Calm in the thick of the tempest, but no less
A partner of its motion and mixed up
With its career. The hurricane is spent,
And the good boat speeds through the brightening weather;
But is it earth or sea that heaves below?
The gulf rolls like a meadow-swell, o'erstrewn
With ravaged boughs and remnants of the shore;
And now some slet, loosened from the land,
Swims past with all its trees, sailing to ocean;
And now the air is full of uptorn canes,
Light strippings from the fan-trees, tamarisks
Unrooted, with their birds still clinging to them,
All high in the wind. Even so my varied life
Drifts by me; I am young, old, happy, sad,
Hoping, desponding, acting, taking rest,
And all at once: that is, those past conditions
Float back at once on me. If I select
Some special epoch from the crowd, 't is but
To will, and straight the rest dissolve away,
And only that particular state is present
With all its long-forgotten circumstance
Distinct and vivid as at firstmyself
A careless looker-on and nothing more,
Indifferent and amused, but nothing more.
And this is death: I understand it all.
New being waits me; new perceptions must
Be born in me before I plunge therein;
Which last is Death's affair; and while I speak,
Minute by minute he is filling me
With power; and while my foot is on the threshold
Of boundless lifethe doors unopened yet,
All preparations not complete within
I turn new knowledge upon old events,
And the effect is . . . but I must not tell;
It is not lawful. Your own turn will come
One day. Wait, Festus! You will die like me.
Festus.
'T is of that past life that I burn to hear.
Paracelsus.
You wonder it engages me just now?
In truth, I wonder too. What 's life to me?
Where'er I look is fire, where'er I listen
Music, and where I tend bliss evermore.
Yet how can I refrain? 'T is a refined
Delight to view those chances,one last view.
I am so near the perils I escape,
That I must play with them and turn them over,
To feel how fully they are past and gone.
Still, it is like, some further cause exists
For this peculiar moodsome hidden purpose;
Did I not tell you something of it, Festus?
I had it fast, but it has somehow slipt
Away from me; it will return anon.
Festus.
(Indeed his cheek seems young again, his voice
Complete with its old tones: that little laugh
Concluding every phrase, with upturned eye,
As though one stooped above his head to whom
He looked for confirmation and approval,
Where was it gone so long, so well preserved?
Then, the fore-finger pointing as he speaks,
Like one who traces in an open book
The matter he declares; 't is many a year
Since I remarked it last: and this in him,
But now a ghastly wreck!)
             And can it be,
Dear Aureole, you have then found out at last
That worldly things are utter vanity?
That man is made for weakness, and should wait
In patient ignorance, till God appoint . . .
Paracelsus.
Ha, the purpose: the true purpose: that is it!
How could I fail to apprehend! You here,
I thus! But no more trifling: I see all,
I know all: my last mission shall be done
If strength suffice. No trifling! Stay; this posture
Hardly befits one thus about to speak:
I will arise.
Festus.
       Nay, Aureole, are you wild?
You cannot leave your couch.
Paracelsus.
               No help; no help;
Not even your hand. So! there, I stand once more!
Speak from a couch? I never lectured thus.
My gownthe scarlet lined with fur; now put
The chain about my neck; my signet-ring
Is still upon my hand, I thinkeven so;
Last, my good sword; ah, trusty Azoth, leapest
Beneath thy master's grasp for the last time?
This couch shall be my throne: I bid these walls
Be consecrate, this wretched cell become
A shrine, for here God speaks to men through me.
Now, Festus, I am ready to begin.
Festus.
I am dumb with wonder.
Paracelsus.
           Listen, therefore, Festus!
There will be time enough, but none to spare.
I must content myself with telling only
The most important points. You doubtless feel
That I am happy, Festus; very happy.
Festus.
'T is no delusion which uplifts him thus!
Then you are pardoned, Aureole, all your sin?
Paracelsus.
Ay, pardoned: yet why pardoned?
Festus.
                 'T is God's praise
That man is bound to seek, and you . . .
Paracelsus.
                     Have lived!
We have to live alone to set forth well
God's praise. 'T is true, I sinned much, as I thought,
And in effect need mercy, for I strove
To do that very thing; but, do your best
Or worst, praise rises, and will rise for ever
Pardon from him, because of praise denied
Who calls me to himself to exalt himself?
He might laugh as I laugh!
Festus.
              But all comes
To the same thing. 'T is fruitless for mankind
To fret themselves with what concerns them not;
They are no use that way: they should lie down
Content as God has made them, nor go mad
In thriveless cares to better what is ill.
Paracelsus.
No, no; mistake me not; let me not work
More harm than I have worked! This is my case:
If I go joyous back to God, yet bring
No offering, if I render up my soul
Without the fruits it was ordained to bear,
If I appear the better to love God
For sin, as one who has no claim on him,-
Be not deceived! It may be surely thus
With me, while higher prizes still await
The mortal persevering to the end.
Beside I am not all so valueless:
I have been something, though too soon I left
Following the instincts of that happy time.
Festus.
What happy time? For God's sake, for man's sake,
What time was happy? All I hope to know
That answer will decide. What happy time?
Paracelsus.
When but the time I vowed myself to man?
Festus.
Great God, thy judgments are inscrutable!
Paracelsus.
Yes, it was in me; I was born for it
I, Paracelsus: it was mine by right.
Doubtless a searching and impetuous soul
Might learn from its own motions that some task
Like this awaited it about the world;
Might seek somewhere in this blank life of ours
For fit delights to stay its longings vast;
And, grappling Nature, so prevail on her
To fill the creature full she dared thus frame
Hungry for joy; and, bravely tyrannous,
Grow in demand, still craving more and more,
And make each joy conceded prove a pledge
Of other joy to followbating nought
Of its desires, still seizing fresh pretence
To turn the knowledge and the rapture wrung
As an extreme, last boon, from destiny,
Into occasion for new coyetings,
New strifes, new triumphs:doubtless a strong soul,
Alone, unaided might attain to this,
So glorious is our nature, so august
Man's inborn uninstructed impulses,
His naked spirit so majestical!
But this was born in me; I was made so;
Thus much time saved: the feverish appeties,
The tumult of unproved desire, the unaimed
Uncertain yearnings, aspirations blind,
Distrust, mistake, and all that ends in tears
Were saved me; thus I entered on my course.
You may be sure I was not all exempt
From human trouble; just so much of doubt
As bade me plant a surer foot upon
The sun-road, kept my eye unruined 'mid
The fierce and flashing splendour, set my heart
Trembling so much as warned me I stood there
On sufferancenot to idly gaze, but cast
Light on a darkling race; save for that doubt,
I stood at first where all aspire at last
To stand: the secret of the world was mine.
I knew, I felt, (perception unexpressed,
Uncomprehended by our narrow thought,
But somehow felt and known in every shift
And change in the spirit,nay, in every pore
Of the body, even,)what God is, what we are,
What life ishow God tastes an infinite joy
In infinite waysone everlasting bliss,
From whom all being emanates, all power
Proceeds; in whom is life for evermore,
Yet whom existence in its lowest form
Includes; where dwells enjoyment there is he;
With still a flying point of bliss remote,
A happiness in store afar, a sphere
Of distant glory in full view; thus climbs
Pleasure its heights for ever and for ever.
The centre-fire heaves underneath the earth,
And the earth changes like a human face;
The molten ore bursts up among the rocks,
Winds into the stone's heart, outbranches bright
In hidden mines, spots barren river-beds,
Crumbles into fine sand where sunbeams bask
God joys therein. The wroth sea's waves are edged
With foam, white as the bitten lip of hate,
When, in the solitary waste, strange groups
Of young volcanos come up, cyclops-like,
Staring together with their eyes on flame
God tastes a pleasure in their uncouth pride.
Then all is still; earth is a wintry clod:
But spring-wind, like a dancing psaltress, passes
Over its breast to waken it, rare verdure
Buds tenderly upon rough banks, between
The withered tree-roots and the cracks of frost,
Like a smile striving with a wrinkled face;
The grass grows bright, the boughs are swoln with blooms
Like chrysalids impatient for the air,
The shining dorrs are busy, beetles run
Along the furrows, ants make their ado;
Above, birds fly in merry flocks, the lark
Soars up and up, shivering for very joy;
Afar the ocean sleeps; white fishing-gulls
Flit where the strand is purple with its tribe
Of nested limpets; savage creatures seek
Their loves in wood and plainand God renews
His ancient rapture. Thus he dwells in all,
From life's minute beginnings, up at last
To manthe consummation of this scheme
Of being, the completion of this sphere
Of life: whose attributes had here and there
Been scattered o'er the visible world before,
Asking to be combined, dim fragments meant
To be united in some wondrous whole,
Imperfect qualities throughout creation,
Suggesting some one creature yet to make,
Some point where all those scattered rays should meet
Convergent in the faculties of man.
Powerneither put forth blindly, nor controlled
Calmly by perfect knowledge; to be used
At risk, inspired or checked by hope and fear:
Knowledgenot intuition, but the slow
Uncertain fruit of an enhancing toil,
Strengthened by love: lovenot serenely pure,
But strong from weakness, like a chance-sown plant
Which, cast on stubborn soil, puts forth changed buds
And softer stains, unknown in happier climes;
Love which endures and doubts and is oppressed
And cherished, suffering much and much sustained,
And blind, oft-failing, yet believing love,
A half-enlightened, often-chequered trust:
Hints and previsions of which faculties,
Are strewn confusedly everywhere about
The inferior natures, and all lead up higher,
All shape out dimly the superior race,
The heir of hopes too fair to turn out false,
And man appears at last. So far the seal
Is put on life; one stage of being complete,
One scheme wound up: and from the grand result
A supplementary reflux of light,
Illustrates all the inferior grades, explains
Each back step in the circle. Not alone
For their possessor dawn those qualities,
But the new glory mixes with the heaven
And earth; man, once descried, imprints for ever
His presence on all lifeless things: the winds
Are henceforth voices, wailing or a shout,
A querulous mutter or a quick gay laugh,
Never a senseless gust now man is born.
The herded pines commune and have deep thoughts
A secret they assemble to discuss
When the sun drops behind their trunks which glare
Like grates of hell: the peerless cup afloat
Of the lake-lily is an urn, some nymph
Swims bearing high above her head: no bird
Whistles unseen, but through the gaps above
That let light in upon the gloomy woods,
A shape peeps from the breezy forest-top,
Arch with small puckered mouth and mocking eye.
The morn has enterprise, deep quiet droops
With evening, triumph takes the sunset hour,
Voluptuous transport ripens with the corn
Beneath a warm moon like a happy face:
And this to fill us with regard for man.
With apprehension of his passing worth,
Desire to work his proper nature out,
And ascertain his rank and final place,
For these things tend still upward, progress is
The law of life, man is not Man as yet.
Nor shall I deem his object served, his end
Attained, his genuine strength put fairly forth,
While only here and there a star dispels
The darkness, here and there a towering mind
O'erlooks its prostrate fellows: when the host
Is out at once to the despair of night,
When all mankind alike is perfected,
Equal in full-blown powersthen, not till then,
I say, begins man's general infancy.
For wherefore make account of feverish starts
Of restless members of a dormant whole,
Impatient nerves which quiver while the body
Slumbers as in a grave? Oh long ago
The brow was twitched, the tremulous lids astir,
The peaceful mouth disturbed; half-uttered speech
Ruffled the lip, and then the teeth were set,
The breath drawn sharp, the strong right-hand clenched stronger,
As it would pluck a lion by the jaw;
The glorious creature laughed out even in sleep!
But when full roused, each giant-limb awake,
Each sinew strung, the great heart pulsing fast,
He shall start up and stand on his own earth,
Then shall his long triumphant march begin,
Thence shall his being date,thus wholly roused,
What he achieves shall be set down to him.
When all the race is perfected alike
As man, that is; all tended to mankind,
And, man produced, all has its end thus far:
But in completed man begins anew
A tendency to God. Prognostics told
Man's near approach; so in man's self arise
August anticipations, symbols, types
Of a dim splendour ever on before
In that eternal circle life pursues.
For men begin to pass their nature's bound,
And find new hopes and cares which fast supplant
Their proper joys and griefs; they grow too great
For narrow creeds of right and wrong, which fade
Before the unmeasured thirst for good: while peace
Rises within them ever more and more.
Such men are even now upon the earth,
Serene amid the half-formed creatures round
Who should be saved by them and joined with them.
Such was my task, and I was born to it
Free, as I said but now, from much that chains
Spirits, high-dowered but limited and vexed
By a divided and delusive aim,
A shadow mocking a reality
Whose truth avails not wholly to disperse
The flitting mimic called up by itself,
And so remains perplexed and nigh put out
By its fantastic fellow's wavering gleam.
I, from the first, was never cheated thus;
I never fashioned out a fancied good
Distinct from man's; a service to be done,
A glory to be ministered unto
With powers put forth at man's expense, withdrawn
From labouring in his behalf; a strength
Denied that might avail him. I cared not
Lest his success ran counter to success
Elsewhere: for God is glorified in man,
And to man's glory vowed I soul and limb.
Yet, constituted thus, and thus endowed,
I failed: I gazed on power till I grew blind.
Power; I could not take my eyes from that:
That only, I thought, should be preserved, increased
At any risk, displayed, struck out at once-
The sign and note and character of man.
I saw no use in the past: only a scene
Of degradation, ugliness and tears,
The record of disgraces best forgotten,
A sullen page in human chronicles
Fit to erase. I saw no cause why man
Should not stand all-sufficient even now,
Or why his annals should be forced to tell
That once the tide of light, about to break
Upon the world, was sealed within its spring:
I would have had one day, one moment's space,
Change man's condition, push each slumbering claim
Of mastery o'er the elemental world
At once to full maturity, then roll
Oblivion o'er the work, and hide from man
What night had ushered morn. Not so, dear child
Of after-days, wilt thou reject the past
Big with deep warnings of the proper tenure
By which thou hast the earth: for thee the present
Shall have distinct and trembling beauty, seen
Beside that past's own shade when, in relief,
Its brightness shall stand out: nor yet on thee
Shall burst the future, as successive zones
Of several wonder open on some spirit
Flying secure and glad from heaven to heaven:
But thou shalt painfully attain to joy,
While hope and fear and love shall keep thee man!
All this was hid from me: as one by one
My dreams grew dim, my wide aims circumscribed,
As actual good within my reach decreased,
While obstacles sprung up this way and that
To keep me from effecting half the sum,
Small as it proved; as objects, mean within
The primal aggregate, seemed, even the least,
Itself a match for my concentred strength
What wonder if I saw no way to shun
Despair? The power I sought for man, seemed God's.
In this conjuncture, as I prayed to die,
A strange adventure made me know, one sin
Had spotted my career from its uprise;
I saw Aprilemy Aprile there!
And as the poor melodious wretch disburthened
His heart, and moaned his weakness in my ear,
I learned my own deep error; love's undoing
Taught me the worth of love in man's estate,
And what proportion love should hold with power
In his right constitution; love preceding
Power, and with much power, always much more love;
Love still too straitened in his present means,
And earnest for new power to set love free.
I learned this, and supposed the whole was learned:
And thus, when men received with stupid wonder
My first revealings, would have worshipped me,
And I despised and loathed their proffered praise
When, with awakened eyes, they took revenge
For past credulity in casting shame
On my real knowledge, and I hated them
It was not strange I saw no good in man,
To overbalance all the wear and waste
Of faculties, displayed in vain, but born
To prosper in some better sphere: and why?
In my own heart love had not been made wise
To trace love's faint beginnings in mankind,
To know even hate is but a mask of love's,
To see a good in evil, and a hope
In ill-success; to sympathize, be proud
Of their half-reasons, faint aspirings, dim
Struggles for truth, their poorest fallacies,
Their prejudice and fears and cares and doubts;
All with a touch of nobleness, despite
Their error, upward tending all though weak,
Like plants in mines which never saw the sun,
But dream of him, and guess where he may be,
And do their best to climb and get to him.
All this I knew not, and I failed. Let men
Regard me, and the poet dead long ago
Who loved too rashly; and shape forth a third
And better-tempered spirit, warned by both:
As from the over-radiant star too mad
To drink the life-springs, beamless thence itself
And the dark orb which borders the abyss,
Ingulfed in icy night,might have its course
A temperate and equidistant world.
Meanwhile, I have done well, though not all well.
As yet men cannot do without contempt;
'T is for their good, and therefore fit awhile
That they reject the weak, and scorn the false,
Rather than praise the strong and true, in me:
But after, they will know me. If I stoop
Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud,
It is but for a time; I press God's lamp
Close to my breast; its splendour, soon or late,
Will pierce the gloom: I shall emerge one day.
You understand me? I have said enough?
Festus.
Now die, dear Aureole!
Paracelsus.
           Festus, let my hand
This hand, lie in your own, my own true friend!
Aprile! Hand in hand with you, Aprile!
Festus.
And this was Paracelsus!


~ Robert Browning, Paracelsus - Part V - Paracelsus Attains
,

IN CHAPTERS [18/18]



   4 Poetry
   3 Philosophy
   3 Mysticism
   3 Islam
   3 Christianity
   1 Sufism
   1 Psychology
   1 Occultism
   1 Integral Yoga


   3 Muhammad
   2 William Butler Yeats
   2 Plato
   2 Anonymous


   3 The Bible
   3 Quran
   2 Yeats - Poems
   2 Talks


1.002 - The Heifer, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
  106. We never nullify a verse, nor cause it to be forgotten, unless We bring one better than it, or similar to it. Do you not know that God is capable of all things?
  107. Do you not know that to God belongs the sovereignty of the heavens and the earth, and that apart from God you have no guardian or helper?
  108. Or do you want to question your Messenger as Moses was questioned before? Whoever exchanges faith for disbelief has strayed from the right path.

1.005 - The Table, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
  40. Do you not know that to God belongs the kingdom of the heavens and the earth? He punishes whom He wills, and He forgives whom He wills. And God is Capable of everything.
  41. O Messenger! Do not let those who are quick to disbelief grieve you—from among those who say with their mouths, “We believe,” but their hearts do not believe; and from among the Jews—listeners to lies, listeners to other people who did not come to you. They distort words from their places, and they say, “If you are given this, accept it; but if you are not given it, beware.” Whomever God has willed to divert, you have nothing for him from God. Those are they whose hearts God does not intend to purify. For them is disgrace in this world, and for them is a great punishment in the Hereafter.

1.00 - The way of what is to come, #The Red Book Liber Novus, #unset, #Zen
    The signposts have fallen, unblazed trails lie before us. 26 Do not be greedy to gobble up the fruits of foreign fields. Do you not know that you yourselves are the fertile acre which bears everything that avails you?
    Yet who today knows this? Who knows the way to the eternally fruitful climes of the soul? You seek the way through mere appearances, you study books and give ear to all kinds of opinion.

1.022 - The Pilgrimage, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
  70. Do you not know that God knows everything in the heavens and the earth? This is in a book. That is easy for God.
  71. Yet they worship, besides God, things for which He sent down no warrant, and what they have no knowledge of. There is no savior for the transgressors.

1.04 - On Knowledge of the Future World., #The Alchemy of Happiness, #Al-Ghazali, #Sufism
  Now come and be candid with yourself; you give credit to a false physician, to a false writer of charms and to a false astrologer, for the sake of being delivered from a day or two of illness in this world, and you even undergo suffering for the sake of it. But the learned in religion, for the sake of saving you from the malady of stupidity and rebellion and bringing you to everlasting health and felicity, have exerted themselves to make the verses of the Koran and the holy traditions to serve as a medicine to deliver you from bitter torment. Still you attach no credit to their words. You treat the Koran and the traditions with entire disregard, neither clinging to the commandments of God, nor avoiding forbidden things. You follow the bent of your own inclinations, instead of following the example and law of the prophet of God, and you indulge in many acts of transgression. Nor do you call to mind what will be your condition in the end of it all, nor how long a time you have yet to live in the world, nor what eternity is compared with this world. Do you not know that by choosing a very little pain in the business of religion during this short life and in this worthless world, you may gain eternal felicity, and riches that cannot be taken from you ? The pain which we may suffer in this world, however severe, yet does not weigh the amount of an atom in comparison with the pains and torment of the other world. This world is a fading shadow, but the future world is abiding and eternal.
  The following is an illustration of the duration of eternity, so far as the human mind can comprehend it. If the space from between the empyreal heaven to the regions below the earth, embracing the whole universe, should be filled up with grains of mustard seed, and if a crow should [103] make use of them as food and come but once in a thousand years and take but a single grain away, so that with the lapse of time there should not remain a single grain, still at the end of that time not the amount of a grain of mustard seed would have been diminished from the duration of eternity.

1.439, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
  M.: Do you not know your Self? You certainly exist. Or do you deny your existence? The question may arise Who is this Self, only if you do not exist, but you cannot ask anything unless you exist at the same time. Your question shows that you exist. Find out who you are. That is all.
  D.: I have read many books. But my mind does not turn to the Self.

1.550 - 1.600 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
  M.: Do you not know your Self? You certainly exist. Or do you deny your existence? The question may arise "Who is this Self", only if you do not exist, but you cannot ask anything unless you exist at the same time. Your question shows that you exist. Find out who you are. That is all.
  D.: I have read many books. But my mind does not turn to the Self.

1.rb - Paracelsus - Part V - Paracelsus Attains, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
  Lean on me thus. Do you not know me, Aureole?
  Paracelsus.

1.rt - The Little Big Man, #Tagore - Poems, #Rabindranath Tagore, #Poetry
    I shall tell him, " Do you not know I am as big as father? And
  I must not have lessons any more."

1.wby - A Dramatic Poem, #Yeats - Poems, #William Butler Yeats, #Poetry
  Forgael. Do you not know me, lady? I am he
    That you are weeping for.
  --
    For you are looking at the sea. Do you not know
    How great a wrong it is to let one's thought

1.wby - The Shadowy Waters - The Shadowy Waters, #Yeats - Poems, #William Butler Yeats, #Poetry
  Forgael. Do you not know me, lady? I am he
    That you are weeping for.
  --
    For you are looking at the sea. Do you not know
    How great a wrong it is to let ones thought

2.03 - THE ENIGMA OF BOLOGNA, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
  A daughter came to the Dominican convent asking for Meister Eckhart. The porter said, Who shall I tell him? She answered, I do not know. Why Do you not know? he inquired. Because, she said, I am neither virgin nor spouse, nor man nor wife nor widow nor lady nor lord nor wench nor thrall. The porter went off to Meister Eckhart. Do come out, he said, to the strangest wight that ever I heard, and let me come too and put your head out and say, Who is asking for me? He did so. She said to him what she had said to the porter. Quoth he, My child, thou hast a shrewd and ready tongue, I prithee now thy meaning? An I were a virgin, she replied, I were in my first innocence; spouse, I were bearing the eternal word within my soul unceasingly; were I a man I should grapple with my faults; wife, should be faithful to my husband. Were I a widow I should be ever yearning for my one and only love; as lady I should render fearful homage; as wench I should be living in meek servitude to God and to all creatures; and as thrall I should be working hard, doing my best tamely to serve my master. Of all these things I am no single one, and am the one thing and the other running thither. The Master went away and told his pupils, I have been listening to the most perfect person I ween I ever met.258
  [103] This story is more than two hundred years older than the earliest reference to the Aelia inscription, and therefore, if there is any literary influence at all, it could at most be derived from Mathieu de Vendme, which seems to me just as unlikely as that Meister Eckharts vision of the naked boy was derived from the classical puer aeternus. In both cases we are confronted with a significant archetype, in the first that of the divine maiden (anima), in the second that of the divine child (the self).259 As we know, these primordial images can rise up anywhere at any time quite spontaneously, without the least evidence of any external tradition. This story could just as well have been a visionary rumour as a fantasy of Meister Eckhart or of one of his pupils. It is, however, rather too peculiar to have been a real happening. But occasionally reality is quite as archetypal as human fantasy, and sometimes the soul seems to imagine things outside the body,260 where they fall to playing, as they do in our dreams.

3.3.2 - Doctors and Medicines, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  You are very much behind the times. Do you not know that even many doctors now admit and write it publicly that medicines are an element but only one and that the psychological element counts as much and even more? I have heard that from doctors often and read it over reputable medical signatures. And among the psychological elements, they say, one of the most important is the doctors optimism and self-confidence, (his faith, what? it is only another word for the same thing) and the confidence, hope, helpful mental atmosphere he can inspire in or around his patient. I have seen it stated categorically that a doctor who can do that is far more successful than one who knows Medicine better but cannot.
  ***

Cratylus, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  Soc. Do you not know what he says about the river in Troy who had
  a single combat with Hephaestus?
  --
  Soc. Do you not know that the heroes are demigods?
  Her. What then?

Epistle to the Romans, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
  3 Or Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?
  4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death,
  --
  16 Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification. 20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death. 22 But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
  CHAPTER 7
  --
  1 Or Do you not know, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives? 2 For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. 3 So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man. 4 Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. 5 For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.
  The Law Allows Recognition of Sin
  --
  1 I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. 2 God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew Or Do you not know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel? 3 "Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have torn down your altars, and I alone am left, and they are seeking my life." 4 But what is the divine response to him? "I have kept for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal."
  The Remnant of Israel

Gorgias, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  CALLICLES: You always contrive somehow or other, Socrates, to invert everything: Do you not know that he who imitates the tyrant will, if he has a mind, kill him who does not imitate him and take away his goods?
  SOCRATES: Excellent Callicles, I am not deaf, and I have heard that a great many times from you and from Polus and from nearly every man in the city, but I wish that you would hear me too. I dare say that he will kill him if he has a mindthe bad man will kill the good and true.

The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
  16 Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
  17 If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are. 18 Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, he must become foolish, so that he may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. For it is written, "He is the one who catches the wise in their craftiness" 20 and again, "the LORD knows the reasoning of the wise, that they are useless." 21 So then let no one boast in men. For all things belong to you, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come; all things belong to you, 23 and you belong to Christ; and Christ belongs to God.
  --
  1 It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father's wife. 2 You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst. 3 For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present. 4 In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, 5 I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. 6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough?
  7 Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened.
  --
  1 Does any one of you, when he has a case against his neighbor, dare to go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints? 2 Or Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? If the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest law courts? 3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more matters of this life? 4 So if you have law courts dealing with matters of this life, do you appoint them as judges who are of no account in the church? 5 I say this to your shame. Is it so, that there is not among you one wise man who will be able to decide between his brethren, 6 but brother goes to law with brother, and that before unbelievers?
  7 Actually, then, it is already a defeat for you, that you have lawsuits with one another. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? 8 On the contrary, you yourselves wrong and defraud. You do this even to your brethren.
  9 Or Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, 10 nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
  Sexual Immorality
  12 All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. 13 Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. 14 Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! 16 Or Do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, "The two shall become one flesh." 17 But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him. 18 Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body.
  19 Or Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you,
  whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?
  --
  12 If others share the right over you, do we not more? Nevertheless, we did not use this right, but we endure all things so that we will cause no hindrance to the gospel of Christ. 13 Do you not know that those who perform sacred services eat the food of the temple, and those who attend regularly to the altar have their share from the altar? 14 So also the Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to get their living from the gospel.
  15 But I have used none of these things. And I am not writing these things so that it will be done so in my case; for it would be better for me to die than have any man make my boast an empty one. 16 For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for I am under compulsion; for woe is me if I do not preach the gospel. 17 For if I do this voluntarily, I have a reward; but if against my will, I have a stewardship entrusted to me. 18 What then is my reward? That, when I preach the gospel, I may offer the gospel without charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel.
  --
  24 Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. 25 Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. 26 Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; 27 but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.
  CHAPTER 10

The Gospel According to John, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
  6 When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, "Crucify him, crucify him!" Pilate said to them, "Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no crime in him." 7 The Jews answered him, "We have a law, and by that law he ought to die, because he has made himself the Son of God." 8 When Pilate heard these words, he was the more afraid; 9 he entered the praetorium again and said to Jesus, "Where are you from?" But Jesus gave no answer. 10 Pilate therefore said to him, "You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you, and power to crucify you?" 11 Jesus answered him, "You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above; therefore he who delivered me to you has the greater sin." 12 Upon this Pilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out, "If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend; every one who makes himself a king sets himself against Caesar."
  13 When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Pavement, and in Hebrew, Gabbatha. 14 Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover; it was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, "Behold your King!" 15 They cried out, "Away with him, away with him, crucify him!" Pilate said to them, "Shall I crucify your King?" The chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar." 16 Then he handed him over to them to be crucified.

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