This is extremely timely!--I'm teaching Shakespeare's Julius Caesar right now. Thank.
The second half of this sentence is an especially lovely formulation: "Over time, that resentment can mutate into envy, and even hatred, of the forgiving man, and the power that allowed him to be forgiving."
Cato the Elder the author of the certain destruction of those virtues by the conquest and extermination of the utterly supine Carthaginians and by one faithless peace to the next.
Senators warned him, Scipio Africanus warned him.
So much for the Chief Roman value of Fides.
Cato the younger acted from petty jealousy. They all did.
They were squabblers who turned to murder against only one of the men who restored order after decades of chaos.
Had it been Crassus or Pompey who ended the chaos, the knife of Brutus would have come for them.
But no story, poem or moralizer bears scrutiny.
Certainly not the real Old South, or the FDR New Deal South, more Democratic than Chicago, and FDR is our very Caesar and Augustus. They his legions.
Perhaps in the end moralizers - Hitler himself you know was one- should be corrected towards the practical or at least judged by results.
Or perhaps if humanity is to advance, historical stories and verse that contradict known truths should be denounced as lies, and the lie and liars cast out.
In the age of gravity, the greatest sin is the lie. Ask Boeing.
Hypocrisy and Moralizing go so hand in hand throughout history to this moment that they’re past wedded and frankly incestuous.
Too long and too rich a tribute has Virtue paid to Vice. Hang all the preachers and poets, we need soldiers and engineers.
Very nice, thank you!
Thank you for reading!
This is a lovely and very interesting post, and well written. Great job!
Thank you!
This is extremely timely!--I'm teaching Shakespeare's Julius Caesar right now. Thank.
The second half of this sentence is an especially lovely formulation: "Over time, that resentment can mutate into envy, and even hatred, of the forgiving man, and the power that allowed him to be forgiving."
Glad to hear it. Thank you for reading!
Cato the Elder the author of the certain destruction of those virtues by the conquest and extermination of the utterly supine Carthaginians and by one faithless peace to the next.
Senators warned him, Scipio Africanus warned him.
So much for the Chief Roman value of Fides.
Cato the younger acted from petty jealousy. They all did.
They were squabblers who turned to murder against only one of the men who restored order after decades of chaos.
Had it been Crassus or Pompey who ended the chaos, the knife of Brutus would have come for them.
But no story, poem or moralizer bears scrutiny.
Certainly not the real Old South, or the FDR New Deal South, more Democratic than Chicago, and FDR is our very Caesar and Augustus. They his legions.
Perhaps in the end moralizers - Hitler himself you know was one- should be corrected towards the practical or at least judged by results.
Or perhaps if humanity is to advance, historical stories and verse that contradict known truths should be denounced as lies, and the lie and liars cast out.
In the age of gravity, the greatest sin is the lie. Ask Boeing.
Hypocrisy and Moralizing go so hand in hand throughout history to this moment that they’re past wedded and frankly incestuous.
Too long and too rich a tribute has Virtue paid to Vice. Hang all the preachers and poets, we need soldiers and engineers.
Never forgive the wicked.
Honestly Brutus should be more vilified than Hitler.
Thanks to the Bard, he’s a tragic hero.