Wednesday, June 25, 2008

A Tribute to Athena

"Yet sometimes in the night watch, when the Galaxy unrolled its book across a moonless sky, I knew what we were about, and where Socrates was sending us. ... I would feel my soul climb love as a mountain, which at the foot has wide slopes ... but at the top one peak, to which if you go upward all paths lead; and beyond it, the blue ether where the world swims like a fish in its ocean, and the winged soul lies free. And thence returning, for a while I found nothing created I could not love: the comrade I had been angry with in the day, the [enemy] sitting in [their fort] ... Yet I was not drowsy, nor lost in dreams, but saw the night sparkle like a crystal, and every cony stirring, or the silent owl."

-- Mary Renault, "Last of the Wine"

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