Sunday, December 12, 2010
Another Ladies Night in Camelot
h/t - Jen.
"Don't forget, a great impression of simplicity can only be achieved by great agony of body and spirit." --Boris Lermontov (ballet impressario)
"You cannot have it both ways. A dancer who relies upon the doubtful comforts of human love will never be a great dancer. Never." --(ibid.)
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I didn't count on being given a choice between simplicity and love.
ReplyDeleteHuman or immortal love. THAT is your choice, grasshopper. ;)
ReplyDeleteHomer, "Iliad" (Book XII)
Still the Trojans and brave Hector would not yet have broken down the gates and the great bar, had not Jove turned his son Sarpedon against the Argives as a lion against a herd of horned cattle. Before him he held his shield of hammered bronze, that the smith had beaten so fair and round, and had lined with ox hides which he had made fast with rivets of gold all round the shield; this he held in front of him, and brandishing his two spears came on like some lion of the wilderness, who has been long famished for want of meat and will dare break even into a well-fenced homestead to try and get at the sheep. He may find the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks with dogs and spears, but he is in no mind to be driven from the fold till he has had a try for it; he will either spring on a sheep and carry it off, or be hit by a spear from some strong hand—even so was Sarpedon fain to attack the wall and break down its battlements. Then he said to Glaucus son of Hippolochus, "Glaucus, why in Lycia do we receive especial honour as regards our place at table? Why are the choicest portions served us and our cups kept brimming, and why do men look up to us as though we were gods? Moreover we hold a large estate by the banks of the river Xanthus, fair with orchard lawns and wheat-growing land; it becomes us, therefore, to take our stand at the head of all the Lycians and bear the brunt of the fight, that one may say to another, 'Our princes in Lycia eat the fat of the land and drink best of wine, but they are fine fellows; they fight well and are ever at the front in battle.' My good friend, if, when we were once out of this fight, we could escape old age and death thenceforward and forever, I should neither press forward myself nor bid you do so, but death in ten thousand shapes hangs ever over our heads, and no man can elude him; therefore let us go forward and either win glory for ourselves, or yield it to another."
You can only do one of those two lovers, justice.
ReplyDeleteOn which side of the looking glass would you remain, Alice?
ReplyDeleteJustice isn't the main goal in life. Remember?
ReplyDelete;-)
I'd ask you...why do you dance?
I thought I'd just answered that question. Only I'll admit that my "happiness" justifies very little. My "contempt", on the other hand, is another matter entirely.
ReplyDelete"What determines your rank is the quantum of power you are. The rest is cowardice."
ReplyDelete...and nothing is as contemptible as my own cowardice.
On which side of the looking glass would you remain, Alice?
ReplyDelete----------
Don't you know the answer to that?
You know me well enough by now.
Is your rank among men, or a competition with yourself?
ReplyDeleteIs your power over others or over yourself?
I know. I answer everything with a question. Frustrating, huh? :-)
Is your rank among men, or a competition with yourself?
ReplyDeleteIt's what I think of myself in the comparison to other men. I could care less what they think their rankings are, but if too high, I might be tempted to go out of my way to "humble" them and "test/prove" my estimation of the rankings.
Is your power over others or over yourself?
Plato, "Laws"
ATHENIAN: I mean this: when one thing changes another, and that another, of such will there be any primary changing element? How can a thing which is moved by another ever be the beginning of change? Impossible. But when the self-moved changes other, and that again other, and thus thousands upon tens of thousands of bodies are set in motion, must not the beginning of all this motion be the change of the self-moving principle?
CLEINIAS: Very true, and I quite agree.
ATHENIAN: Or, to put the question in another way, making answer to ourselves: If, as most of these philosophers have the audacity to affirm, all things were at rest in one mass, which of the above-mentioned principles of motion would first spring up among them?
CLEINIAS: Clearly the self-moving; for there could be no change in them arising out of any external cause; the change must first take place in themselves.
ATHENIAN: Then we must say that self-motion being the origin of all motions, and the first which arises among things at rest as well as among things in motion, is the eldest and mightiest principle of change, and that which is changed by another and yet moves other is second.
You must first have the power to "move" yourself before you can "truly" have power to "move" others (by either "reason", shaping of circumstance, or force).
On which side of the looking glass would you remain, Alice?
ReplyDelete----------
Don't you know the answer to that?
I think I know what you'd LIKE to do. But like me, you play on BOTH sides of the glass and remain perpetually frustrated.
...and "cracking the glass" would force us to remain on one side or the other. ;)
ReplyDeleteIn other words, we perpetually gaze upon the road to Camelot instead of building a flower stand next to it. ;)
ReplyDelete...the solution would be to do what the men of Gotham did on the day the King's road planning commission stopped by...
ReplyDelete...but that would mean I'd have to give up newspapers. :(
That's not the only solution.
ReplyDeleteI think another solution would require immense discipline...but what I'm afraid of is the anxiety.
I've done it before.
There's a letting go of sorts that must happen, but I don't even know if it's necessary anymore.
The question is: is this life affirming?
If not, away with it.
But of course, two co-dependent people would never admit that "this" isn't life affirming.
From my perspective, there is so much unsaid.
ReplyDeleteThat makes me sad.
So much goes unsaid because so much is unknown.
Again, I am a very concrete person.
sorry for the rambling...
Anyway, Joe, most newspapers are just a bunch of repetitive, uninspired babbling anyway. ;-)
Not only the newspapers. It's hard to escape from Grub Street and those who would desire to set up a shop there.
ReplyDeleteMeden Agan...
ReplyDelete