From these hills the day has gone down to the west.
Flowers sleep and stars reflect their peace in the lake.
Leave me here, where the shadows of the forest firs cover me;
Let the night breeze breathe around me like the breath of dreams,
For here over the dark crest of the hill lies sorrow:
Beyond it, the battlefield where long ago
They laid the hacked and broken bones of men
Who died before they lived, far from home.
I shall sit here in the shadows and remember them.
99
When evening comes and the world grows quiet
And the heart too,
When your hand lies weary on your knee
And you can hear the tick of the pendulum from the clock on the wall
Which has not made itself heard all day,
When dusk lies in the corners and the nightjar flies outside;
Then you think of the gleam of the setting sun
Looking one last time through the window,
The sound of children on their way home, laughing,
To their supper and sleep,
You think perhaps the day was glad after all,
And tomorrow might be gladder.
100
I would be well content if allowed
The use of past experience,
To use the wisdom gleaned from follies past,
Acknowledged now;
To try life again, in hope
Of fewer errors on second proof.
But my heart said: could you, in truth?
Will you pardon time wasted,
Morality violated, talent abused,
Judgement ill-made, mercies not done,
Opportunity lost?
It is an evil incident to man
To leave unexamined the springs of useful truth,
And to walk the world with eyes shut,
Mind closed, ears stopped,
Heart gated against the greater good.
And one can walk thus only in the trodden way.
101
They sent me a present from Annam:
A red cockatoo,
Coloured like the peach-tree blossom,
Speaking the speech of men.
They had done to it what they always do
To the learned and eloquent:
They took a cage with stout bars
And shut it inside.
102
My bed has been put behind the unpainted screen.
They have shifted the stove next to the blue curtain.
My grandchildren read to me sometimes from their books:
The servants heat my soup on the brazier outside.
With a quick pencil I answer goodwill notes from my friends,
I feel in my pocket for coins to pay the doctor.
When all these trifling things are done
I lie back on my pillow, and sleep with my face to the south.
103
Until forty one is distracted by the five lusts;
After seventy one is prey to a hundred diseases.
But at fifty and sixty one is free from all ills.
Calm and still, the heart enjoys rest.
I have put behind me love and greed,
I have put behind me profit and fame;
I am not yet decrepit or decayed;
Strength of limbs remains to me,
And I can seek the river and walk the hills;
My heart still loves hearing the flute and strings,
My stomach enjoys the new wine and the feast.
Do not complain of three-score:
It is the time we obey ourselves best.
104
Do not braid up your hair.
Let it fly unconfined,
Let its ravisher, the wind,
Wanton with it:
Like a clew of golden thread
Unravelled, let it free.
Do not wind up that light in ribands,
Or over-cloud it, like the night;
But let the sun’s colour in it
Shake loose and scatter abroad,
Like day.
105
Into the isolated fields two figures passed,
Walking slow, into the frozen wood.
Their lips are tight, their eyes dead,
No one hears what they said.
Into the frozen fields two shadows passed,
To remember or deny the forgotten past.
Do you recall our ecstasy, they asked;
Why should we recall it, they answered;
Does my name beat in your heart always, they asked;
Never, they answered; and the taste of our kisses, they asked,
Do you taste them still?
No, they answered; all is gone, kisses too;
Forgotten, like a broken cup, its contents spilled.
So through the barren night they wandered,
Through the frozen meadows,
Only darkness hearing their words.
106
Worldly concerns are again drawing me.
The world seduces me: my thoughts
Grow narrow and covetous.
Once I used to visit you,
Passing there in the early morning;
Stopped my horse at your gate and tapped;
You sent your children to lead me in,
And you ran to the door to greet me,
Gown flapping round your bare ankles,
Laughing, cap awry.
And we breakfasted together on the swept terrace
With its view to the hills and the eastern lodge high up,
Its roof visible above the trees.
We talked all day sometimes,
But never spoke of profit or office.
Since we parted, how long has passed?
The leaves were falling then; now I hear
The new cicadas sing. And I
Have been drawn back to worldly concerns;
The world seduces me again,
Though we never talked of office and profit.
107
How great a thing is a cup of wine!
A single cup makes us tell the story of our lives.
By the willows that gaze at themselves in the pond
We drank and talked of our schooldays together,
Amazed at our folly then, and our ignorance:
We were ambitious, and never paused to sit quietly,
To look at the moon, to listen to the oriole sing,
To appreciate the shapes of oak leaves and acorns.
Now I listen to the water falling in the stream,
And if I have you and a cup of wine with me there
I can tell the story of my life again, and listen to yours.
108
Do I love you for the fine soft waves of hair
That fall about your neck when you undress?
Do I love you for the flowers on your cheeks, the rose
And the fragrant blossom there of palest red?
Do I love you for your coral lips, and the kisses I plant there,
Though those kisses may melt
Mightiest tyrants, and waken death to life?
Do I love you for those pearl teeth
That guard the music of your voice,
Or that ivory pillar of your neck, or your breasts
Soft and fair with rosy nipples crowned?
Do I love you, fairest of all fair?
109
Let there be persuasions to joy, O love.
Before the quick eye and darting affection grow cold,
Before the graces of manner and face change or fall,
Before golden hair grows to snow, or fresh beauty fades:
Let there be persuasions to joy.
Before time brings his sickle, or his wings,
Let us grasp it, and gather what now is,
And live before winter.
110
Have you grown a stranger to
peace?
Are you troubled? Take the flagon and a cup;
Leave the turmoil of the town, its dust and clamour,
Walk up those paths that wind into the woods,
And let the sunlight paint patterns through the leaves around you,
The chorus of birds sing to you,
The stream falling among the rocks soothe you.
In the brevity of life there is little time for these self-estrangements.
Go up to the woods;
You will find yourself waiting there,
Flagon and cup ready, peace seated beside you.
111
Every petal that falls reduces spring.
Every leaf that falls hurries the year’s end towards us.
Having studied the world, I wonder at man:
How can he be so deaf to that roar,
That thunder of passing time?
112
The butterflies go deeper and deeper among the flowers,
The dragonflies hover between drops of water
Flung up in the fountain’s spray.
Watching them I see that they are unconcerned about what troubles us,
Which is that our candle of life flutters so weakly in the blast of time.
We have so little chance to know each other, beloved,
We should never be apart.
113
When born we weep, while others round us smile.
May we live that when we die
We smile, and others round us weep.
Do not deceive, do not offer strangers wrong;
Act a brother’s part in all;
Then shall you smile on the last day,
To have lived as humanity should:
To be mourned as a servant of the good.
114
My fugitive years are hasting away:
Soon I must lie with the turf on my breast.
To muse on the perishing pleasures of man
I went back to those favourite fields
Where I played in childhood;
To the bank of the river where I sat and dreamt;
And found all changed.
The poplars were felled that shaded me then;
No more could I hear the rustle of their leaves,
Or see their image tremble in the river,
Or sit in their shade to rest;
No more could the blackbird find there retreat
From which to offer his sweet-flowing song.
Long since they were turned to smoke,
As the years turn to smoke.
Long since the fugitive years have hastened them away,
And my years with them.
Histories
Chapter 1
1. These are the records of the historian, offered to preserve remembrance of what mankind has experienced,
2. And to give account of the great war between East and West, on which the hinge of history turned;
3. Of how the West defended its birth from the assault of the East,
4. For the East, in its power and sway, and its indifference to liberty, would by victory have turned the course of the world into different paths.
5. Whereas the free hearts of the fathers of the West, smaller in number, weaker in power,
6. Yet stronger in resolve and greater in genius, kept the infant civilisation free.
7. Experience is our first guide; how much better we fare when we recall examples of our ancestors and their deeds,
8. Not least those that instruct and illuminate our way, placing our steps in the path of understanding;
9. Nor should we forget our beginnings, nor those few to whom we, who are now as multitudinous as stars, owe so much.
Chapter 2
1. When the East was Persia, and had already begun to wax great,
2. And the West was Greece, yet an infant in comparison of numbers and wealth,
3. The relation between them was that of a centre to its margins.
4. For the world was Asia, and the small Greek states from the Aegean islands to Italy’s foot were mere villages on its distant shore.
5. The Easterners trace to stories of Troy the reason of their first enmity towards the Greeks;
6. But in truth the seeds of conflict lay in the growth of Eastern power,
7. When Croesus, son of Alyattes, a Lydian by birth, extended his dominion over all the nations west of the River Halys.
8. He was the first of the barbarian kings to have dealings with Greeks, forcing some to become his tributaries, and making allies among others.
9. He conquered the Greeks of Asia and the eastern Mediterranean, the Aeolians, Dorians and Ionians, who up to that time had been free.
10. The first Greek city captured by Croesus was Ephesus; thereafter he took all the Greek cities of that region,
11. And even planned a fleet to attack the islands, but his advisers stopped him;
12. For the Greeks were masters of the waves, and Croesus would have ventured too far in challenging them there.
13. When Croesus had brought under his dominion all the nations west of the Halys – Lydians, Phrygians, Mysians, Mariandynians,
14. Chalybians, Paphlagonians, Thynian and Bithynian Thracians,
15. Carians, Ionians, Dorians, Aeolians and Pamphylians – and his power was at its height, he was visited by Solon the Athenian.
16. Now Solon was deemed the wisest man in Athens by his fellow citizens, so they had asked him to devise laws for them,
17. To quell arguments and divisions in the city, thus helping its citizens live a peaceful and prosperous life together.
18. Solon agreed, saying, ‘I do this on condition that none of my laws shall be changed for ten years, to give them time to take effect.’
19. And when he had done his work he left the city and travelled abroad, so that his fellow-citizens could not plead with him to revoke his laws,
20. But more to see new things and gain new knowledge, for this he loved beyond all else.
Chapter 3
1. After travelling in Egypt and the regions of the near East, Solon went to the court of Croesus in Sardis.
2. He knew that this king was the richest and until then the most fortunate of the world’s rulers; and he wished to see him in the high state of his fortune and his empire.
3. Croesus for his part wished to impress so renowned a man as Solon.
4. He lodged him in his palace in opulent rooms, and ordered his servants to show him the immense palace treasuries.
5. When Solon had seen all this, he was given a splendid dinner, seated at the right hand of Croesus;
6. And when the eating was over and fresh wine was poured, the king addressed Solon as follows.
7. ‘Solon of Athens,’ he said, ‘we have heard much of your wisdom and your travels through many lands, seeking knowledge of all things.
8. ‘I am curious to ask you: who is happiest of all the people you have encountered in your life?’
9. And Croesus expected to be told that he himself was the happiest because he was the richest and most powerful among kings.
10. But Solon answered with truth rather than flattery, saying, ‘The happiest man I have ever encountered is Tellus of Athens.’
11. Astonished and disappointed, Croesus asked in what way Tellus was happiest.
12. Solon said, ‘First, because in his time Athens was flourishing;
13. ‘Second, he had sons who were both beautiful and good, and he lived to see each of them have children of their own;
14. ‘And third, after a life lived in comfort and uprightness, and in favourable standing among all who knew him,
15. ‘He died a courageous and honourable death, fighting alongside his countrymen during the war between Athens and Eleusis.
16. ‘He was given a public funeral where he fell, and was paid the highest civic honours.’
17. Thus did Solon admonish Croesus by the example of Tellus.
18. But Croesus privately discounted t
his story, thinking Tellus no more than a good citizen who, though deserving praise,
19. Could not compare with the glory of a rich and universally admired king.
20. So he asked again, ‘Who seems to you happiest after Tellus?’
21. To this Solon replied, ‘I would give second place to two men jointly, the brothers Cleobis and Biton.
22. ‘They were Argives, modestly well off, but of enormous physical strength, who had both won prizes at the Games for their prowess.
23. ‘It once happened that there was an important festival which their mother wished to attend, but the oxen did not return from the fields in time to draw her cart thither;
24. ‘So the sons hitched themselves to it, and pulled it from their home to the distant place of festival, bearing their mother along.
25. ‘Great crowds saw this feat; the men standing by praised the brothers’ athleticism, the women praised their mother for having such dutiful sons;
26. ‘And their mother herself applauded them before all the company, and laid claim on their behalf to a monument for their filial affection.’
27. Angrily Croesus said, ‘Do you set at nothing all my happiness, that I am to come below private men,
28. ‘Even men who have not much beyond mere muscles and the respect for a mother that we expect from everyone?’
29. ‘O Croesus,’ replied Solon, ‘you asked me about the condition of man, and I know that human lives are full of trouble and change.
30. ‘A long life witnesses many things that one would rather not witness. A man has not so many as a thousand months to live, no, not so many as nine hundred;
31. ‘And each day of those months can bring events unlike any other day, and all manner of accidents.
32. ‘I see that you are very rich, and rule many lands and peoples, but what you wish me to answer you I cannot until I have heard of your death,
33. ‘For only then can I judge whether your life was happy.
34. ‘For we can call no man happy until he is dead, when the good and bad of his life has been added up and understood.
35. ‘Do not call the rich man happy then; call him fortunate; do not call him happy until all things have been reckoned up, and the true balance of his life is weighed.
36. ‘For assuredly, the rich man is no nearer happiness than the poor man who has all he needs.
37. ‘Indeed the rich man has more worries and responsibilities, and more to lose, than the poor man;
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