The Broken Sword

John Howe - Aragorn

All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

A light from the shadows shall spring;

Renewed shall be blade that was broken,

The crownless again shall be king

(J.R.R. Tolkien)

(Mystery - Broken Sword)

Far over the misty mountains cold

John Howe: Smaug

(Far over the misty mountains cold by J.R.R. Tolkien)

Far over the misty mountains cold

To dungeons deep and caverns old

We must away ere break of day

To seek the pale enchanted gold.

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,

While hammers fell like ringing bells

In places deep, where dark things sleep,

In hollow halls beneath the fells.

For ancient king and elvish lord

There many a gleaming golden hoard

They shaped and wrought, and light they caught

To hide in gems on hilt of sword.

On silver necklaces they strung

The flowering stars, on crowns they hung

The dragon-fire, in twisted wire

They meshed the light of moon and sun.

Far over the misty mountains cold

To dungeons deep and caverns old

We must away, ere break of day,

To claim our long-forgotten gold.

Goblets they carved there for themselves

And harps of gold; where no man delves

There lay they long, and many a song

Was sung unheard by men or elves.

The pines were roaring on the height,

The winds were moaning in the night.

The fire was red, it flaming spread;

The trees like torches blazed with light.

The bells were ringing in the dale

And men they looked up with faces pale;

The dragon’s ire more fierce than fire

Laid low their towers and houses frail.

The mountain smoked beneath the moon;

The dwarves they heard the tramp of doom.

They fled their hall to dying fall

Beneath his feet, beneath the moon.

Far over the misty mountains grim

To dungeons deep and caverns dim

We must away, ere break of day,

To win our harps and gold from him!

Devil's Dinner

Lucifer

(George Gordon Byron - Lucifer's monologue from the play "Cain")

A superior?! Superior?!

No! By heaven, which he

Holds, and the abyss, and the immensity

Of worlds and life, which I hold with him—No!

I have a Victor—true; but no superior.

Homage he has from all—but none from me:

I battle it against him, as I battled

In highest Heaven—through all Eternity,

And the unfathomable gulfs of Hades,

And the interminable realms of space,

And the infinity of endless ages,

All, all, will I dispute! And world by world,

And star by star, and universe by universe,

Shall tremble in the balance, till the great

Conflict shall cease, if ever it shall cease,

Which it ne'er shall, till he or I be quenched!

And what can quench our immortality,

Or mutual and irrevocable hate?

He as a conqueror will call the conquered

Evil, but what will be the Good he gives?

Were I the victor, his works would be deemed

The only evil ones. And you, ye new

And scare-born mortals, what have been his gifts

To you already, in your little world?

But few; and some of those but bitter.

Back with me, then, to thine earth, and try the rest

Of his celestial boons to you and yours.

Evil and Good are things in their own essence,

And not made good or evil by the Giver;

But if he gives you good—so call him; if

Evil springs from him, do not name it mine,

Till ye know better its true fount; and judge

Not by words, though of Spirits, but the fruits

Of your existence, such as it must be.

One good gift has the fatal apple given—

Your reason: — let it not be overswayed

By tyrannous threats to force you into faith

'Gainst all external sense and inward feeling:

Think and endure, — and form an inner world

In your own bosom — where the outward fails;

So shall you nearer be the spiritual

Nature, and war triumphant with your own.

(Lake of Tears - Devil's Dinner)

The art of war

Henry Merwin Shrady: Cavalry

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
“Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.”
“Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.”
“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win”
“All warfare is based on deception.”
“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”
“To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy.”
“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”
“Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment — that which they cannot anticipate.”
“Move swift as the Wind and closely-formed as the Wood. Attack like the Fire and be still as the Mountain.”
“All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.”
“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity”
“The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.”
“So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong, and strike at what is weak.”
“One mark of a great soldier is that he fight on his own terms or fights not at all.”
“Hold out baits to entice the enemy.  Feign disorder, and crush him.”
“Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.”
(And many more from Sun Tzu book The art of war)

(Manowar - Warriors of the world)

Ta Eis Eafton (Anthem for the nations)

William Russell Flint: O Cithaeeron 

"The Thoughts of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus"

• If thou art pained by any external thing, it is not this that disturbs thee, but thy own judgment about it. And it is in thy power to wipe out this judgment now.

• A cucumber is bitter. Throw it away. There are briars in the road. Turn aside from them. This is enough. Do not add, "And why were such things made in the world?" 

• Soon you'll be ashes or bones. A mere name at most—and even that is just a sound, an echo. The things we want in life are empty, stale, trivial.

• Never regard something as doing you good if it makes you betray a trust or lose your sense of shame or makes you show hatred, suspicion, ill-will or hypocrisy or a desire for things best done behind closed doors. (III. 7, trans. Gregory Hays)

• Not to feel exasperated or defeated or despondent because your days aren't packed with wise and moral actions. But to get back up when you fail, to celebrate behaving like a human—however imperfectly—and fully embrace the pursuit you've embarked on.

• Let opinion be taken away, and no man will think himself wronged. If no man shall think himself wronged, then is there no more any such thing as wrong.

• (...) As for others whose lives are not so ordered, he reminds himself constantly of the characters they exhibit daily and nightly at home and abroad , and of the sort of society they frequent; and the approval of such men, who do not even stand well in their own eyes has no value for him. 

• Shame on the soul, to falter on the road of life while the body still perseveres.

• Take away your opinion, and there is taken away the complaint, [...] Take away the complaint, [...] and the hurt is gone 

• Whatever happens to you has been waiting to happen since the beginning of time. The twining strands of fate wove both of them together: your own existence and the things that happen to you. 

• Words that everyone once used are now obsolete, and so are the men whose names were once on everyone's lips: Camillus, Caeso, Volesus, Dentatus, and to a lesser degree Scipio and Cato, and yes, even Augustus, Hadrian, and Antoninus are less spoken of now than they were in their own days. For all things fade away, become the stuff of legend, and are soon buried in oblivion. Mind you, this is true only for those who blazed once like bright stars in the firmament, but for the rest, as soon as a few clods of earth cover their corpses, they are 'out of sight, out of mind.' In the end, what would you gain from everlasting remembrance? Absolutely nothing. So what is left worth living for? This alone: justice in thought, goodness in action, speech that cannot deceive, and a disposition glad of whatever comes, welcoming it as necessary, as familiar, as flowing from the same source and fountain as yourself. 

• Do not then consider life a thing of any value. For look at the immensity of time behind thee, and to the time which is before thee, another boundless space. In this infinity then what is the difference between him who lives three days and him who lives three generations? 

• When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own—not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine.

• Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years! Death hangs over thee! While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good!

(Jack Starr - Anthem for the nations)

Vice Human

Donato Giancola: The taming of Smeagol

The cold hard lands, 

they bites our hands, 

they gnaws our feet. 

The rocks and stones 

are like old bones 

all bare of meat. 

But stream and pool 

is wet and cool: 

so nice for feet! 

And now we wish -

Alive without breath; 

as cold as death; 

never thirsting, ever drinking; 

clad in mail, never clinking. 

Drowns on dry land, 

thinks an island 

is a mountain; 

thinks a fountain 

is a puff of air. 

So sleek, so fair! 

What a joy to meet! 

We only wish 

to catch a fish, 

so juicy-sweet!

(JRR Tolkien Gollum's Song in the Dead Marshes, The Two Towers Book 4, Chapter 'The Passage of the Marshes')

Klingsor's last summer

Hugo Pratt: Corto Maltese

"He closed his eyes and thought of Gina, and of the portico with the washtubs. God in heaven, so many thousands of things were waiting, so many thousands of cups stood ready poured. Not a thing on earth that he should not have painted. Not a woman in the world whom he should not have loved. Why did time exist? Why always this idiotic succession of one thing after another, and not a roaring, surfeiting simultaneity? Why was he now lying alone in bed again, like a widower, like an old man? You could enjoy, could create, all through this short life; and yet at best you were always merely singing one song after another. The whole full symphony with all its hundred voices and instruments never sounded all at once."

.......................................

"One dream image among the many delighted and greatly stirred him. He lay in a forest and had a woman with red hair across his lap, and a black-haired woman leaned against his shoulder and another knelt beside him, holding his hand and kissing his fingers, and everywhere, all around, were women and girls, some still children, with long thin legs, some nubile, some mature and with the signs of knowledge and of fatigue in their restive faces, and all loved him and all wanted to be loved by him. Then war and fury erupted among the women, the red one thrust a raging hand into the black one's hair and pulled her to the ground and was herself dragged down, and all fell upon one another, each one screaming, each tearing, each biting, each hurting, each suffering pain. Laughter, cries of fury and howls of anguish rang out intertwined and tangled, blood flowed everywhere, nails dug bloodily into fat flesh."

........................................

""It's a pity, Klingsor," the doctor remarked plaintively in his kindly voice. "Your wonderful watercolors will all be white in ten years. These colors you like so well have no lasting qualities."

            "Yes," Klingsor said, "and what is worse, Doctor: your fine brown hair will all be gray in ten years, and a little while later all our good gay bones will be lying in some hole in the ground, including, alas, your beautiful and healthy bones, Ersilia. My friends, let's not start becoming sensible so late in life. Hermann, how does Li Po put it?"

            Hermann the Poet stood still and intoned:

            Life passes like a flash of lightning

            Whose blaze barely lasts long enough to see.

            While the earth and the sky stand still forever

            How swiftly changing time flies across man's face.

            O you who sit over your full cup and do not drink,

            Tell me whom you are still waiting for?

            "No," Klingsor said, "I mean the other poem, the rhymed one, about the hair that was still dark at morning. . ."

            Hermann promptly recited:

            Only this morning your hair gleamed silken and black,

            Evening has already sprinkled it with snow.

            If you would not suffer as on the rack

            Hold out your cup and summon the moon for your drink-fellow. "

............................

"Klingsor drank them in with a thirsty eye, but his thoughts were with Gina. He would not be able to see her for another week. She was sitting in an office in the city, working away at the typewriter; he seldom managed to see her, and never alone. And he loved her, her more than all the others, though she knew nothing about him, did not understand him, regarded him as a strange rare bird, a famous foreign painter. How strange that was, that his longings should cling to her alone, that no other love satisfied him. It was not like him to go far out of his way for a woman. But he did for Gina, in order to be beside her for an hour, to hold her small slender fingers, to thrust his shoe beneath hers, to imprint a quick kiss on the nape of her neck. He thought about that, a droll puzzle to himself. Was this already the turning point? Old age already coming on? Was it only that, the December-May impulse of the man of forty for the girl of twenty?"

(Herman Hesse: Klingsor's last summer)

Heart of Darkness

Edward John Poynter: At low tide

("Heart of Darkness" novel by Joseph Conrad - Excerpt)
"He had taken a high seat amongst the devils of the land-- I mean literally. You can't understand. How could you?-- with solid pavement under your feet, surrounded by kind neighbors ready to cheer you or to fall on you, stepping delicately between the butcher and the policeman, in the holy terror of scandal and gallows and lunatic asylums--how can you imagine what particular region of the first ages a man's untrammeled feet may take him into by the way of solitude--utter solitude without a policeman-- by the way of silence, utter silence, where no warning voice of a kind neighbor can be heard whispering of public opinion? These little things make all the great difference. When they are gone you must fall back upon your own innate strength, upon your own capacity for faithfulness. Of course you may be too much of a fool to go wrong--too dull even to know you are being assaulted by the powers of darkness. I take it, no fool ever made a bargain for his soul with the devil: the fool is too much of a fool, or the devil too much of a devil-- I don't know which. Or you may be such a thunderingly exalted creature as to be altogether deaf and blind to anything but heavenly sights and sounds. Then the earth for you is only a standing place-- and whether to be like this is your loss or your gain I won't pretend to say. But most of us are neither one nor the other. The earth for us is a place to live in, where we must put up with sights, with sounds, with smells too, by Jove!--breathe dead hippo, so to speak, and not be contaminated. And there, don't you see? Your strength comes in, the faith in your ability for the digging of unostentatious holes to bury the stuff in--your power of devotion, not to yourself, but to an obscure, back-breaking business. And that's difficult enough. "

"I looked at him, lost in astonishment. There he was before me, in motley, as though he had absconded from a troupe of mimes, enthusiastic, fabulous. His very existence was improbable, inexplicable, and altogether bewildering. He was an insoluble problem. It was inconceivable how he had existed, how he had succeeded in getting so far, how he had managed to remain-- why he did not instantly disappear. `I went a little farther,' he said, `then still a little farther--till I had gone so far that I don't know how I'll ever get back. Never mind.

Plenty time. I can manage. You take Kurtz away quick--quick--I tell you.' The glamour of youth enveloped his particolored rags, his destitution, his loneliness, the essential desolation of his futile wanderings. For months--for years--his life hadn't been worth a day's purchase; and there he was gallantly, thoughtlessly alive, to all appearance indestructible solely by the virtue of his few years and of his unreflecting audacity. I was seduced into something like admiration-- like envy. Glamour urged him on, glamour kept him unscathed. He surely wanted nothing from the wilderness but space to breathe in and to push on through. His need was to exist, and to move onwards at the greatest possible risk, and with a maximum of privation. If the absolutely pure, uncalculating, unpractical spirit of adventure had ever ruled a human being, it ruled this be-patched youth. I almost envied him the possession of this modest and clear flame. It seemed to have consumed all thought of self so completely, that, even while he was talking to you, you forgot that it was he--the man before your eyes--who had gone through these things.”

(Apocalypse Now, the movie, based on this book)

Swords and Roses (The dreaming city)

Robert Gould: Elric of Melnibone

"It is the color of a bleached skull, his flesh; and the long hair which flows below his shoulders is milk-white. From the tapering, beautiful head stare two slanting eyes, crimson and moody, and from the loose sleeves of his yellow gown emerge two slender hands, also the color of bone. "
— Michael Moorcock (Elric of Melniboné - The Chronicle of the Black Sword)

"Legends are best left as legends and attempts to make them real are rarely successful"
— Michael Moorcock (Elric of Melniboné)

"Elric knew that everything that existed had its opposite. In danger he might find peace. And yet, of course, in peace there was danger. Being an imperfect creature in an imperfect world he would always know paradox. And that was why in paradox there was always a kind of truth. That was why philosophers and soothsayers flourished. In a perfect world there would be no place for them. In an imperfect world the mysteries were always without solution and that was why there was always a great choice of solutions."
— Michael Moorcock (The Elric Saga Part I)

"We must be bound to one another then," Elric murmured despairingly. "Bound by hell-forged chains and fate-haunted circumstance. Well, then--let it be thus so--and men will have cause to tremble and flee when they hear the names of Elric of Melinbone and Stormbringer, his sword. We are two of a kind--produced by an age which has deserted us. Let us give this age cause to hate us!"
— Michael Moorcock (Elric: The Stealer of Souls)

M.W. Kaluta: Elric of Melnibone

My name is Elric

And I bear the Black Sword

This is the Tale of Elric

Before he was called Womanslayer

Before the final collapse of Melnibone

This is the tale of the doomed

Black Sword

Mighty Elric, Mightier Sword

Sorcerer and Swordsman

Slayer of kin

Lord of a dying race, King of ruins

Dragon Master,

Champion of Doom

Ymmrir, The Dreaming City

Yrkoon, the hated usurper

Cymoril, the beloved,

All had fallen

To the fury and unholy power

Of the albino prince

And his terrible Sword

(Chorus)

Stormbringer, Black Runesword

Battle - thirsty prince,

Blood - hungry sword

Stormbringer, sing a song of victory

And as I hold you in my hands

You drink the souls

Of all my enemies

My enemies, oh drink the souls

Of all my enemies

The return of the King...

Alan Lee: Aragorn and Eowin

(just a glimpse)

All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

A light from the shadows shall spring;

Renewed shall be blade that was broken,

The crownless again shall be king.

The Lord of the Rings

The Riddle of Strider, a poem contained in a letter from Gandalf which the innkeeper gives to Frodo, Chapter 'Strider'.

"He deserves death."

"Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends. I have not much hope that Gollum can be cured before he dies, but there is a chance of it. And he is bound up with the fate of the Ring. My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet, or good or Ill, before the end; and when that comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many - yours not least."

The Lord of the Rings

Frodo and Gandalf discussing the fate of the betrayer Gollum, Chapter 'The Shadow of the Past'.

"What do you fear, lady?" he asked.

"A cage," she said. "To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire."

The Lord of the Rings

Aragorn and Lady Éowyn, Chapter 'The Passing of the Grey Company'.

In rode the Lord of the Nazgûl. A great black shape against the fires beyond he loomed up, grown to a vast menace of despair. In rode the Lord of the Nazgûl, under the archway that no enemy ever yet had passed, and all fled before his face.All save one. There waiting, silent and still in the space before the Gate, sat Gandalf upon Shadowfax: Shadowfax who alone among the free horses of the earth endured the terror, unmoving, steadfast as a graven image in Rath Dínen.

"You cannot enter here," said Gandalf, and the huge shadow halted. "Go back to the abyss prepared for you! Go back! Fall into the nothingness that awaits you and your Master. Go!"

The Black Rider flung back his hood, and behold! he had a kingly crown; and yet upon no head visible was it set. The red fires shone between it and the mantled shoulders vast and dark. From a mouth unseen there came a deadly laughter.

"Old fool!" he said. "Old fool! This is my hour. Do you not know Death when you see it? Die now and curse in vain!" And with that he lifted high his sword and flames ran down the blade.

The Lord of the Rings

Chapter 'The Siege of Gondor'.

"How do I feel?" he cried. "Well, I don't know how to say it. I feel, I feel' — he waved his arms in the air — 'I feel like spring after winter, and sun on the leaves; and like trumpets and harps and all the songs I have ever heard!"

The Lord of the Rings

Gandalf celebrates the victory over Sauron, Chapter 'The Field of Cormallen'.

Dragons and Wizards

Jeffrey Jones: Undying Wizard

Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea

"Only in silence the word,

Only in dark the light,

Only in dying life:

Bright the hawk's flight

On the empty sky."

"To hear, one must be silent"

"To light a candle is to cast a shadow."

"The wise don't need to ask, the fool asks in vain."

"What good is power when you're too wise to use it?"

"I had forgotten how much light there is in the world, till you gave it back to me."

Excerpt:

But all this is hearsay; wizards will not speak of it.

The months went by, and at last on a day of spring Ged returned to the Great House, and he had no idea what would be asked of him next. At the door that gives on the path across the fields to Roke Knoll an old man met him, waiting for him in the doorway. At first Ged did not know him, and then putting his mind to it recalled him as the one who had let him into the School on the day of his coming, five years ago.

The old man smiled, greeting him by name, and asked, «Do you know who I am?»

Now Ged had thought before of how it was always said, the Nine Masters of Roke, although he knew only eight: Windkey, Hand, Herbal, Chanter, Changer, Summoner, Namer, Patterner. It seemed that people spoke of the Archmage as the ninth. Yet when a new Archmage was chosen, nine Masters met to choose him.

«I think you are the Master Doorkeeper,» said Ged.

«I am. Ged, you won entrance to Roke by saying your name. Now you may win your freedom of it by saying mine.» So said the old man smiling, and waited. Ged stood dumb.

He knew a thousand ways and crafts and means for finding out names of things and of men, of course; such craft was a part of everything he had learned at Roke, for without it there could be little useful magic done. But to find out the name of a Mage and Master was another matter. A mage's name is better hidden than a herring in the sea, better guarded than a dragon's den. A prying charm will be met with a stronger charm, subtle devices will fail, devious inquiries will be deviously thwarted, and force will be turned ruinously back upon itself.

«You keep a narrow door, Master,» said Ged at last. «I must sit out in the fields here, I think, and fast till I grow thin enough to slip through.»

«As long as you like,» said the Doorkeeper, smiling.

So Ged went off a little way and sat down under an alder on the banks of the Thwilburn, letting his otak run down to play in the stream and hunt the muddy banks for creek-crabs. The sun went down, late and bright, for spring was well along. Lights of lantern and werelight gleamed in the windows of the Great House, and down the hill the streets of Thwil town filled with darkness. Owls hooted over the roofs and bats flitted in the dusk air above the stream, and still Ged sat thinking how he might, by force, ruse, or sorcery, learn the Doorkeeper's name. The more he pondered the less he saw, among all the arts of witchcraft he had learned in these five years on Roke, any one that would serve to wrest such a secret from such a mage.

He lay down in the field and slept under the stars, with the otak nestling in his pocket. After the sun was up he went, still fasting, to the door of the House and knocked. The Doorkeeper opened.

«Master,» said Ged, «I cannot take your name from you, not being strong enough, and I cannot trick your name from you, not being wise enough. So I am content to stay here, and learn or serve, whatever you will: unless by chance you will answer a question I have.»

«Ask it.»

«What is your name?»

The Doorkeeper smiled, and said his name: and Ged, repeating it, entered for the last time into that House.

Jeffrey Jones: Dragon Slayer

Don Quixote / Gustav Dore

"Too much sanity may be madness - and the maddest of all - to see life as it is, and not as it ought to be."

At this point they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that are on that plain.

"Fortune," said Don Quixote to his squire, as soon as he had seen them, "is arranging matters for us better than we could have hoped. Look there, friend Sancho Panza, where thirty or more monstrous giants rise up, all of whom I mean to engage in battle and slay, and with whose spoils we shall begin to make our fortunes. For this is righteous warfare, and it is God's good service to sweep so evil a breed from off the face of the earth."

"What giants?" said Sancho Panza.

"Those you see there," answered his master, "with the long arms, and some have them nearly two leagues long."

"Look, your worship,'' said Sancho. "What we see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the vanes that turned by the wind make the millstone go."

"It is easy to see," replied Don Quixote, "that you are not used to this business of adventures. Those are giants, and if you are afraid, away with you out of here and betake yourself to prayer, while I engage them in fierce and unequal combat."

So saying, he gave the spur to his steed Rocinante, heedless of the cries his squire Sancho sent after him, warning him that most certainly they were windmills and not giants he was going to attack. He, however, was so positive they were giants that he neither heard the cries of Sancho, nor perceived, near as he was, what they were.

"Fly not, cowards and vile beings," he shouted, "for a single knight attacks you."

A slight breeze at this moment sprang up, and the great vanes began to move.

"Though ye flourish more arms than the giant Briareus, ye have to reckon with me!" exclaimed Don Quixote, when he saw this.

So saying, he commended himself with all his heart to his lady Dulcinea, imploring her to support him in such a peril. With lance braced and covered by his shield, he charged at Rocinante's fullest gallop and attacked the first mill that stood in front of him. But as he drove his lance-point into the sail, the wind whirled it around with such force that it shivered the lance to pieces. It swept away with it horse and rider, and they were sent rolling over the plain, in sad condition indeed.

Sancho hastened to his assistance as fast as the ass could go. When he came up and found Don Quixote unable to move, with such an impact had Rocinante fallen with him.

"God Bless me!," said Sancho, "did I not tell your worship to watch what you were doing, because they were only windmills? No one could have made any mistake about it unless he had something of the same kind in his head."

"Silence, friend Sancho," replied Don Quixote. "The fortunes of war more than any other are liable to frequent fluctuations. Moreover I think, and it is the truth, that the same sage Frestón who carried off my study and books, has turned these giants into mills in order to rob me of the glory of vanquishing them, such is the enmity he bears me. But in the end his wicked arts will avail but little against my good sword."

"God's will be done," said Sancho Panza, and helping him to rise got him again on Rocinante, whose shoulder was half dislocated. Then, discussing the adventure, they followed the road to Puerto Lápice, for there, said Don Quixote, they could not fail to find adventures in abundance and variety, as it was a well-traveled thoroughfare. For all that, he was much grieved at the loss of his lance, and said so to his squire.

"I remember having read," he added, "how a Spanish knight, Diego Pérez de Vargas by name, having broken his sword in battle, tore from an oak a ponderous bough or branch. With it he did such things that day, and pounded so many Moors, that he got the surname of Machuca (3) and his descendants from that day forth are called Vargas y Machuca. I mention this because from the first oak I see I mean to tear a branch, large and stout. I am determined and resolved to do such deeds with it that you may deem yourself very fortunate in being found worthy to see them and be an eyewitness of things that will scarcely be believed."

"Be that as God wills," said Sancho, "I believe it all as your worship says it. But straighten yourself a little, for you seem to be leaning to one side, maybe from the shaking you got when you fell."

"That is the truth, said Don Quixote, "and if I make no complaint of the pain it is because knights-errant are not permitted to complain of any wound, even though their bowels be coming out through it."

"If so," said Sancho, "I have nothing to say. But God knows I would rather your worship complained when anything ailed you. For my part, I confess I must complain however small the ache may be, unless this rule about not complaining applies to the squires of knights-errant also."

Don Quixote could not help laughing at his squire's simplicity, and assured him he might complain whenever and however he chose, just as he liked. So far he had never read of anything to the contrary in the order of knighthood.

Sancho reminded him it was dinner time, to which his master answered that he wanted nothing himself just then, but that Sancho might eat when he had a mind. With this permission Sancho settled himself as comfortably as he could on his beast, and taking out of the saddlebags what he had stowed away in them, he jogged along behind his master munching slowly. From time to time he took a pull at the wineskin with all the enjoyment that the thirstiest tavern-keeper in Málaga might have envied. And while he went on in this way, between gulps, he never gave a thought to any of the promises his master had made him, nor did he rate it as hardship but rather as recreation going in quest of adventures, however dangerous they might be.

Finally they settled down for the night among some trees. From one of them Don Quixote plucked a dry branch to serve as a lance, fixing on it the head he had removed from the broken one. All that night Don Quixote lay awake thinking of his lady Dulcinea, in conformity with what he had read in his books, how many a night in the forests and deserts knights used to lie sleepless, borne up by the memory of their mistresses.

Sancho Panza spent it thus: having his stomach full of something stronger than chicory water he slept straight through. If his master had not called him, neither the rays of the sun beating on his face nor all the cheery notes of the birds welcoming the approach of day would have had power to waken him.

Rigid and grave like steel 

on his skinny horse rides the Cervantes' hero,

and behind him, riding hot on his ass,

his fat squire is panting to follow.

From ages he set off, for ages his march,

his lips are solemnly sealed,

his eyes are ecstatic, in his hand his lance,

on his way to a chimeric field.

As he wanders through the wide worldly streets,

people who meet him mock him as fool,

point at him ironicaly laughing, and drool.

Oh poet! likewise when you pass,

the commoners giggle, let them laugh, they are shallow:

The Quixotes ever forward will march and the Sanchos always will follow!

(Ouranis - T.P.)

Immortal beloved

July 6, in the morning
My angel, my all, my very self - Only a few words today and at that with pencil (with yours) - Not till tomorrow will my lodgings be definitely determined upon - what a useless waste of time - Why this deep sorrow when necessity speaks - can our love endure except through sacrifices, through not demanding everything from one another; can you change the fact that you are not wholly mine, I not wholly thine - Oh God, look out into the beauties of nature and comfort your heart with that which must be - Love demands everything and that very justly - thus it is to me with you, and you with me. But you forget so easily that I must live for me and for you; if we were wholly united you would feel the pain of it as little as I - My journey was a fearful one: I did not reach here until 4 o'clock yesterday morning. Lacking horses the postcoach chose another route, but what an awful one; at the stage before the last I was warned not to travel at night; I was made fearful of the forest, but that only made me the more eager - and I was wrong. The coach must needs break down on the wretched road, a bottomless mud road. Without such postilions as I had with me I should have remained stuck in the road. Esterhazy, traveling the usual road here, had the same fate with eight horses that I had with four - yet I got some pleasure out of it, as I always do when I successfully overcome difficulties - Now a quick change to things internal from things external. We shall surely see each other soon; moreover, today I cannot share with you the thoughts I have had during these last few days touching my own life - If our hearts were always close together, I would have none of these. My heart is full of so many things to say to you - ah - there are moments when I feel that speech amounts to nothing at all - Cheer up - remain my true, my only treasure, my all as I am yours. The gods must send us the rest, what for us must and shall be-
Your faithful Ludwig

Evening, Monday, July 6
You are suffering, my dearest creature - only now have I learned that letters must be posted very early in the morning on Mondays - Thursdays - the only day on which the mail-coach goes from here to K. - You are suffering - Ah, wherever I am, you are with me - I will arrange it with you and me that I can live with you. What a life!!!! thus!!!! without you - pursued by the goodness of mankind hither and thither - which I as little want to deserve as I deserve it - Humility of man towards man - it pains me - and when I consider myself in relation to the universe, what am I and what is He - whom we call the greatest - and yet - herein lies the divine in man - I weep when I reflect that you will probably not receive the first report from me until Saturday - Much as you love me - I love you more - But do not ever conceal yourself from me - good night - As I am taking the baths I must go to bed - Oh God - so near! so far! Is not our love truly a heavenly structure, and also as firm as the vault of Heaven? -

Good morning, on July 7
Though still in bed, my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved, not and then joyfully, then sadly, waiting to learn whether or not fate will hear us - I can only live wholly with you or not at all - Yes, I am resolved to wander so long away from you until I can fly to your arms and say that I am really at home with you, and can send my soul enwrapped in you into the lands of spirits - Yes unhappily it must be so - You will be the more contained since you know my fidelity to you. No one else can ever possess my heart - never - never - Oh God, why must one be parted from one whom one so loves. And yet my life in V[ienna] is now a wretched life - Your love makes me at once the happiest and the unhappiest of men - at my age I need a steady, quiet life - can that be so in out connection? My angel, I have just been told that the mailcoach goes everyday - therefore I must close at once so that you may receive the l[etter] at once. - Be calm, only by a calm consideration of our existence can we achieve out purpose to live together - Be calm - love me - today - yesterday - what tearful longings for you - you - you - my life - my all - farewell. -Oh continue to love me - never misjudge the most faithful heart of you beloved.
Ever Yours.
Ever Mine.
For Ever.

A Game of Thrones...

"There is no privacy in the heart of the tribe. Dany felt the eyes on her as she undressed him, heard the soft voices as she did the things that Doreah had told her to do. It was nothing to her. His were the only eyes that mattered, and when she mounted him she saw something there that she had never seen before. She rode him as fiercely as ever she had ridden her silver horse, and when the moment of his pleasure came, Khal Drogo called out her name."

Dorian Gray - Vanitas

J.D. Godward: Athenais

‘There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray.

All influence is immoral,—immoral from the scientific

point of view.’

‘Why?’

‘Because to influence a person is to give him one’s own

soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with

his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His

sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He

becomes an echo of some one else’s music, an actor of a

part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is

self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly,—that

is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of

themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of

all duties, the duty that one owes to one’s self. Of course

they are charitable. They feed the hungry, and clothe the

beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked.

Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really

had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals,

the terror of God, which is the secret of religion,—these

are the two things that govern us. And yet—‘

‘Just turn your head a little more to the right, Dorian,

like a good boy,’ said Hallward, deep in his work, and

conscious only that a look had come into the lad’s face

that he had never seen there before.

‘And yet,’ continued Lord Henry, in his low, musical

voice, and with that graceful wave of the hand that was

always so characteristic of him, and that he had even in his

Eton days, ‘I believe that if one man were to live his life

out fully and completely, were to give form to every

feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every

dream,—I believe that the world would gain such a fresh

impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of

mediaevalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal,— to

something finer, richer, than the Hellenic ideal, it may be.

But the bravest man among us is afraid of himself. The

mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the selfdenial

that mars our lives. We are punished for our

refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in

the mind, and poisons us. The body sins once, and has

done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification.

Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure,

or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a

temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows

sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself,

with desire for what its monstrous laws have made

monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the great

events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the

brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world

take place also. You, Mr. Gray, you yourself, with your

rose-red youth and your rose-white boyhood, you have

had passions that have made you afraid, thoughts that have

filled you with terror, day-dreams and sleeping dreams

whose mere memory might stain your cheek with

shame—‘

.........

.........

‘Let us go and sit in the shade,’ said Lord Henry.

‘Parker has brought out the drinks, and if you stay any

longer in this glare you will be quite spoiled, and Basil will

never paint you again. You really must not let yourself

become sunburnt. It would be very unbecoming to you.’

‘What does it matter?’ cried Dorian, laughing, as he sat

down on the seat at the end of the garden.

‘It should matter everything to you, Mr. Gray.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you have now the most marvellous youth, and

youth is the one thing worth having.’

‘I don’t feel that, Lord Henry.’

‘No, you don’t feel it now. Some day, when you are

old and wrinkled and ugly, when thought has seared your

forehead with its lines, and passion branded your lips with

its hideous fires, you will feel it, you will feel it terribly.

Now, wherever you go, you charm the world. Will it

always be so?

‘You have a wonderfully beautiful face, Mr. Gray.

Don’t frown. You have. And Beauty is a form of

Genius,—is higher, indeed, than Genius, as it needs no

explanation. It is one of the great facts of the world, like

sunlight, or spring-time, or the reflection in dark waters of

that silver shell we call the moon. It cannot be questioned.

It has its divine right of sovereignty. It makes princes of

those who have it. You smile? Ah! when you have lost it

you won’t smile.

‘People say sometimes that Beauty is only superficial.

That may be so. But at least it is not so superficial as

Thought. To me, Beauty is the wonder of wonders. It is

only shallow people who do not judge by appearances.

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the

invisible.

‘Yes, Mr. Gray, the gods have been good to you. But

what the gods give they quickly take away. You have only

a few years in which really to live. When your youth goes,

your beauty will go with it, and then you will suddenly

discover that there are no triumphs left for you, or have to

content yourself with those mean triumphs that the

memory of your past will make more bitter than defeats.

Every month as it wanes brings you nearer to something

dreadful. Time is jealous of you, and wars against your

lilies and your roses. You will become sallow, and hollowcheeked,

and dull-eyed. You will suffer horribly.

‘Realize your youth while you have it. Don’t squander

the gold of your days, listening to the tedious, trying to

improve the hopeless failure, or giving away your life to

the ignorant, the common, and the vulgar, which are the

aims, the false ideals, of our age. Live! Live the wonderful

life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always

searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing.

‘A new hedonism,—that is what our century wants.

You might be its visible symbol. With your personality

there is nothing you could not do. The world belongs to

you for a season.

‘The moment I met you I saw that you were quite

unconscious of what you really are, what you really might

be. There was so much about you that charmed me that I

felt I must tell you something about yourself. I thought

how tragic it would be if you were wasted. For there is

such a little time that your youth will last,—such a little

time.

‘The common hill-flowers wither, but they blossom

again. The laburnum will be as golden next June as it is

now. In a month there will be purple stars on the clematis,

and year after year the green night of its leaves will have its

purple stars. But we never get back our youth. The pulse

of joy that beats in us at twenty, becomes sluggish. Our

limbs fail, our senses rot. We degenerate into hideous

puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which

we were too much afraid, and the exquisite temptations

that we did not dare to yield to. Youth! Youth! There is

absolutely nothing in the world but youth!’