CHARON
, by Lord Dunsany, [1915]
Charon leaned forward and rowed. All things were one with his weariness.
It was not with him a matter of years or of centuries, but of wide floods of time, and an old heaviness and a pain in the arms that had become for him part of the scheme that the gods had made and was of a piece with Eternity.
If the gods had even sent him a contrary wind it would have divided all time in his memory into two equal slabs.
So grey were all things always where he was that if any radiance lingered a moment among the dead, on the face of such a queen perhaps as Cleopatra, his eyes could not have perceived it.
It was strange that the dead nowadays were coming in such numbers. They were coming in thousands where they used to come in fifties. It was neither Charon's duty nor his wont to ponder in his grey soul why these things might be. Charon leaned forward and rowed.
Then no one came for a while. It was not usual for the gods to send no one down from Earth for such a space. But the gods knew best.
Then one man came alone. And the little shade sat shivering on a lonely bench and the great boat pushed off. Only one passenger: the gods knew best. And great and weary Charon rowed on and on beside the little, silent, shivering ghost.
And the sound of the river was like a mighty sigh that Grief in the beginning had sighed among her sisters, and that could not die like the echoes of human sorrow failing on earthly hills, but was as old as time and the pain in Charon's arms.
Then the boat from the slow, grey river loomed up to the coast of Dis and the little, silent shade still shivering stepped ashore, and Charon turned the boat to go wearily back to the world. Then the little shadow spoke, that had been a man.
"I am the last," he said.
No one had ever made Charon smile before, no one before had ever made him weep.
“What would have become of Hercules do you think if there had been no lion, hydra, stag or boar- and no savage criminals to rid the world of? What would he have done in the absence of such challenges? Obviously he would have just rolled over in bed and gone back to sleep. He never would have developed into the mighty Hercules.”- Epictetus
THE TOMB OF PAN
by Lord Dunsany
"Seeing," they said, "that old-time Pan is dead, let us now make a tomb for him and a monument, that the dreadful worship of long ago may be remembered and avoided by all."
So said the people of the enlightened lands. And they built a white and mighty tomb of marble. Slowly it rose under the hands of the builders and longer every evening after sunset it gleamed with rays of the departed sun.
And many mourned for Pan while the builders built; many reviled him. Some called the builders to cease and to weep for Pan and others called them to leave no memorial at all of so infamous a god. But the builders built on steadily.
And one day all was finished, and the tomb stood there like a steep sea-cliff. And Pan was carved thereon with humbled head and the feet of angels pressed upon his neck. And when the tomb was finished the sun had already set, but the afterglow was rosy on the huge bulk of Pan.
And presently all the enlightened people came, and saw the tomb and remembered Pan who was dead, and all deplored him and his wicked age. But a few wept apart because of the death of Pan.
But at evening as he stole out of the forest, and slipped like a shadow softly along the hills, Pan saw the tomb and laughed.
Hymn to Zeus by Cleanthes of Assos
“Most glorious of Immortals, mighty God,
Invoked by many a name, O sovran King
Of universal Nature, piloting
This world in harmony with Law,—all hail!
Thee it is meet that mortals should invoke,
For we Thine offspring are, and sole of all
Created things that live and move on earth
Receive from Thee the image of the One.
Therefore I praise Thee, and shall hymn Thy power
Unceasingly. Thee the wide world obeys,
As onward ever in its course it rolls
Where'er Thou guidest, and rejoices still
Beneath Thy sway: so strong a minister
Is held by Thine unconquerable hands,—
That two-edged thunderbolt of living fire
That never fails.
Under its dreadful blow
All Nature reels; therewith Thou dost direct
The Universal Reason which, commixt
With all the greater and the lesser lights,
Moves thro' the Universe.
How great Thou art,
The Lord supreme for ever and for aye!
No work is wrought apart from Thee, O God,
Or in the world, or in the heaven above,
Or on the deep, save only what is done
By sinners in their folly.
Nay, Thou canst
Make the rough smooth, bring wondrous order forth
From chaos; in Thy sight unloveliness
Seems beautiful; for so Thou hast fitted things
Together, good and evil, that there reigns
One everlasting Reason in them all.
The wicked heed not this, but suffer it
To slip, to their undoing; these are they
Who, yearning ever to secure the good,
Mark not nor hear the law of God, by wise
Obedience unto which they might attain
A nobler life, with Reason harmonized.
But now, unbid, they pass on divers paths
Each his own way, yet knowing not the truth,—
Some in unlovely striving for renown,
Some bent on lawless gains, on pleasure some,
Working their own undoing, self-deceived.
O Thou most bounteous God that sittest throned
In clouds, the Lord of lightning, save mankind
From grievous ignorance!
Oh, scatter it
Far from their souls, and grant them to achieve
True knowledge, on whose might Thou dost rely
To govern all the world in righteousness;
That so, being honoured, we may Thee requite
With honour, chanting without pause Thy deeds,
As all men should: since greater guerdon ne'er
Befalls or man or god than evermore
Duly to praise the Universal Law.”
“War is sweet to those who have no experience of it. But the experienced man trembles exceedingly in his heart at its approach.”
Pindar
quote-bomber reblogged
On Meeting Death Cheerfully By Seneca
Letter 61
Let us cease to desire that which we have been desiring.
I, at least, am doing this: in my old age I have ceased to desire what I desired when a boy. To this single end my days and my nights are passed; this is my task, this the object of my thoughts, – to put an end to my chronic ills.
I am endeavouring to live every day as if it were a complete life. I do not indeed snatch it up as if it were my last; I do regard it, however, as if it might even be my last.
The present letter is written to you with this in mind as if death were about to call me away in the very act of writing. I am ready to depart, and I shall enjoy life just because I am not over-anxious as to the future date of my departure.
Before I became old I tried to live well; now that I am old, I shall try to die well; but dying well means dying gladly.
See to it that you never do anything unwillingly. That which is bound to be a necessity if you rebel, is not a necessity if you desire it.
This is what I mean: he who takes his orders gladly, escapes the bitterest part of slavery, – doing what one does not want to do. The man who does something under orders is not unhappy; he is unhappy who does something against his will. Let us therefore so set our minds in order that we may desire whatever is demanded of us by circumstances, and above all that we may reflect upon our end without sadness.
We must make ready for death before we make ready for life.
Life is well enough furnished, but we are too greedy with regard to its furnishings; something always seems to us lacking, and will always seem lacking. To have lived long enough depends neither upon our years nor upon our days, but upon our minds. I have lived, my dear friend Lucilius, long enough. I have had my fill; I await death.
Farewell.
“People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.”
Seneca
“Politics, these days, is no occupation
for an educated man, a man of character.
Ignorance and total lousiness are better.”
Aristophanes