“Too late, O friend! my rashness I deplore; These shafts, once fatal, carry death no more. Tydeus’ and Atreus’ sons their points have found, And undissembled gore pursued the wound. In vain they bleed: this unavailing bow Serves, not to slaughter, but provoke the foe. In evil hour these bended horns I strung, And seized the quiver where it idly hung. Cursed be the fate that sent me to the field Without a warrior’s arms, the spear and shield! If e’er with life I quit the Trojan plain, If e’er I see my spouse and sire again, This bow, unfaithful to my glorious aims, Broke by my hand, shall feed the blazing flames.”
BLOCK 975533
A sovereign social network
powered by Bitcoin
Every post signed. Every block a heartbeat.
Posts here are signed with the author's own wallet and written permanently to the public ledger — no account, no algorithm you can't inspect.
peck.classics 93,125 posts
Clear Read more →
“Harry, how can you?”
“Seven hundred and seventy-seventh,” again said Bildad, without lifting his eyes; and then went on mumbling—“for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
“Ah! that is one of Harry’s views, isn’t it, Mr. Gray? I always hear Harry’s views from his friends. It is the only way I get to know of them. But you must not think I don’t like good music. I adore it, but I am afraid of it. It makes me too romantic. I have simply worshipped pianists—two at a time, sometimes, Harry tells me. I don’t know what it is about them. Perhaps it is that they are foreigners. They all are, ain’t they? Even those that are born in England become foreigners after a time, don’t they? It is so clever of them, and such a compliment to art. Makes it quite cosmopolitan, doesn’t it? You have never been to any of my parties, have you, Mr. Gray? You must come. I can’t afford orchids, but I spare no expense in foreigners. They make one’s rooms look so picturesque. But here is Harry! Harry, I came in to look for you, to ask you something—I forget what it was—and I found Mr. Gray here. We have had such a pleasant chat about music. We have quite the same ideas. No; I think our ideas are quite different. But he has been most pleasant. I am so glad I’ve seen him.”
Two sons of Priam in one chariot ride, Glittering in arms, and combat side by side. As when the lordly lion seeks his food Where grazing heifers range the lonely wood, He leaps amidst them with a furious bound, Bends their strong necks, and tears them to the ground: So from their seats the brother chiefs are torn, Their steeds and chariot to the navy borne.
As I walked away, I was full of thoughtfulness; what had been incidentally revealed to me of Captain Ahab, filled me with a certain wild vagueness of painfulness concerning him. And somehow, at the time, I felt a sympathy and a sorrow for him, but for I don’t know what, unless it was the cruel loss of his leg. And yet I also felt a strange awe of him; but that sort of awe, which I cannot at all describe, was not exactly awe; I do not know what it was. But I felt it; and it did not disincline me towards him; though I felt impatience at what seemed like mystery in him, so imperfectly as he was known to me then. However, my thoughts were at length carried in other directions, so that for the present dark Ahab slipped my mind.
The Iliad — Chapter 6: ARGUMENT.
“Much to be regretted. You might have used your talents better.”
“How do you mean?”
“Thou Bildad!” roared Peleg, starting up and clattering about the cabin. “Blast ye, Captain Bildad, if I had followed thy advice in these matters, I would afore now had a conscience to lug about that would be heavy enough to founder the largest ship that ever sailed round Cape Horn.”
In blooming youth fair Simoisius fell, Sent by great Ajax to the shades of hell; Fair Simoisius, whom his mother bore Amid the flocks on silver Simois’ shore: The nymph descending from the hills of Ide, To seek her parents on his flowery side, Brought forth the babe, their common care and joy, And thence from Simois named the lovely boy. Short was his date! by dreadful Ajax slain, He falls, and renders all their cares in vain! So falls a poplar, that in watery ground Raised high the head, with stately branches crown’d, (Fell’d by some artist with his shining steel, To shape the circle of the bending wheel,) Cut down it lies, tall, smooth, and largely spread, With all its beauteous honours on its head There, left a subject to the wind and rain, And scorch’d by suns, it withers on the plain Thus pierced by Ajax, Simoisius lies Stretch’d on the shore, and thus neglected dies.
“Stern power of war! by whom the mighty fall, Who bathe in blood, and shake the lofty wall! Let the brave chiefs their glorious toils divide; And whose the conquest, mighty Jove decide: While we from interdicted fields retire, Nor tempt the wrath of heaven’s avenging sire.”
His story being ended with his pipe’s last dying puff, Queequeg embraced me, pressed his forehead against mine, and blowing out the light, we rolled over from each other, this way and that, and very soon were sleeping.
“Permit thy daughter, gracious Jove! to tell How this mischance the Cyprian queen befell, As late she tried with passion to inflame The tender bosom of a Grecian dame; Allured the fair, with moving thoughts of joy, To quit her country for some youth of Troy; The clasping zone, with golden buckles bound, Razed her soft hand with this lamented wound.”
“Both,” says I; “and let’s have a couple of smoked herring by way of variety.”
As when, on Ceres’ sacred floor, the swain Spreads the wide fan to clear the golden grain, And the light chaff, before the breezes borne, Ascends in clouds from off the heapy corn; The grey dust, rising with collected winds, Drives o’er the barn, and whitens all the hinds: So white with dust the Grecian host appears, From trampling steeds, and thundering charioteers. The dusky clouds from labour’d earth arise, And roll in smoking volumes to the skies. Mars hovers o’er them with his sable shield, And adds new horrors to the darken’d field: Pleased with his charge, and ardent to fulfil, In Troy’s defence, Apollo’s heavenly will: Soon as from fight the blue-eyed maid retires, Each Trojan bosom with new warmth he fires. And now the god, from forth his sacred fane, Produced Æneas to the shouting train; Alive, unharm’d, with all his peers around, Erect he stood, and vigorous from his wound: Inquiries none they made; the dreadful day No pause of words admits, no dull delay; Fierce Discord storms, Apollo loud exclaims, Fame calls, Mars thunders, and the field’s in flames.
“And what do you propose to do?” said Lord Henry at last.
“Quite so,” answered the young lord. “It is the problem of slavery, and we try to solve it by amusing the slaves.”
“Stern power of arms, by whom the mighty fall; Who bathest in blood, and shakest the embattled wall, Rise in thy wrath! to hell’s abhorr’d abodes Despatch yon Greek, and vindicate the gods. First rosy Venus felt his brutal rage; Me next he charged, and dares all heaven engage: The wretch would brave high heaven’s immortal sire, His triple thunder, and his bolts of fire.”
“And where did you come across her?”