"THE OLD WOMAN WHO WISHED TO BUY JOSEPH
It is said that when they sold Joseph to the Egyptians the latter treated him kindly. There were many buyers so the merchants priced him at from five to ten times his weight in musk. Meanwhile, in a state of agitation, an old woman ran up, and going among the buyers said to an Egyptian: 'Let me buy the Canaanite, for I long to possess that young man. I have spun ten spools of thread to pay for him so take them and give me Joseph and say no more about it.' The merchants smiled and said: 'Your simplicity has misled you. This unique pearl is not for you; they have already offered a hundred treasures for him. How can you bid against them with your spools of thread?' The old woman, looking into their faces, said: 'I know very well that you will not sell him for so little, but it is enough for me that my friends and enemies will say, "this old woman has been among those who wished to buy Joseph".'
He who is without aspiration will never reach the boundless kingdom. Possessed of this lofty ambition a great prince regarded his worldly kingdom as ashes. When he realized the emptiness of temporal royalty, he decided that spiritual royalty was worth a thousand kingdoms of the world." - Attar of Nishapur, The Conference of the Birds
It is said that when they sold Joseph to the Egyptians the latter treated him kindly. There were many buyers so the merchants priced him at from five to ten times his weight in musk. Meanwhile, in a state of agitation, an old woman ran up, and going among the buyers said to an Egyptian: 'Let me buy the Canaanite, for I long to possess that young man. I have spun ten spools of thread to pay for him so take them and give me Joseph and say no more about it.' The merchants smiled and said: 'Your simplicity has misled you. This unique pearl is not for you; they have already offered a hundred treasures for him. How can you bid against them with your spools of thread?' The old woman, looking into their faces, said: 'I know very well that you will not sell him for so little, but it is enough for me that my friends and enemies will say, "this old woman has been among those who wished to buy Joseph".'
He who is without aspiration will never reach the boundless kingdom. Possessed of this lofty ambition a great prince regarded his worldly kingdom as ashes. When he realized the emptiness of temporal royalty, he decided that spiritual royalty was worth a thousand kingdoms of the world." - Attar of Nishapur, The Conference of the Birds
"There was an age when the gods would sit down alongside mortals, as they did at Cadmus and Harmony's wedding feast in Thebes. At this point gods and men had no difficulty recognizing each other; sometimes they were even companions in adventure, as were Zeus and Cadmus, when the man proved of vital help to the god. Relative roles in the cosmos were not disputed, since they had already been assigned; hence gods and men met simply to share some feast before returning each to his own business. Then came another phase, during which a god might not be recognized. As a result the god had to assume the role he has never abandoned since, right down to our own times, that of the Unknown Guest, the Stranger. One day the sons of Lycaon, king of Arcadia, invited to their table an unknown laborer who was in fact Zeus. "Eager to know whether they were speaking to a real god, they sacrificed a child and mixed his flesh with that of the sacred victims, thinking that if the stranger was a god he would discover what they had done." Furious, Zeus pushed over the table. That table was the ecliptic plane, which from that day on would be forever tilted. There followed the most tremendous flood.
After that banquet, Zeus made only rare appearances as the Unknown Guest. The role passed, for the most part, to other gods. Now, when Zeus chose to tread the earth, his usual manifestation was through rape. This is the sign of the overwhelming power of the divine, of the residual capacity of distant gods to invade mortal minds and bodies. Rape is at once possessing and possession. (...) Such are the stories of which mythology is woven: they tell how mortal mind and body are still subject to the divine, even when they are no longer seeking it out, even when the ritual approaches to the divine have become confused." - Roberto Calasso, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony
After that banquet, Zeus made only rare appearances as the Unknown Guest. The role passed, for the most part, to other gods. Now, when Zeus chose to tread the earth, his usual manifestation was through rape. This is the sign of the overwhelming power of the divine, of the residual capacity of distant gods to invade mortal minds and bodies. Rape is at once possessing and possession. (...) Such are the stories of which mythology is woven: they tell how mortal mind and body are still subject to the divine, even when they are no longer seeking it out, even when the ritual approaches to the divine have become confused." - Roberto Calasso, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony
"When Croesus consulted Delphi before taking the most momentous step in his long reign - the war against Cyrus of Persia - the Pythia's answer was perfect in its ambiguity: "You will destroy a great empire." Croesus thought the great empire was Cyrus's, whereas in fact the oracle was referring to his own. Old and beaten, enslaved by Cyrus, Croesus chose to send to Delphi a last gift, his chains. (...)
In his dialogue between Croesus and Solon, Herodotus sets up the first verbal duel between Asia and Europe. (...) Croesus is eager for Solon to recognize him as not only the most powerful but also the happiest of men. Solon responds by citing, as an example of a happy man, an unknown Athenian who died, old, in battle. Solon doesn't mean to contrast the common man with the king. That would be banal. He is explaining the Greek paradox as far as happiness is concerned: that one arrives at it only in death. Happiness is an element of life which, before it can come into being, demands that life disappear. If happiness is a quality that sums up the whole man, then it must wait until a man's life is complete in death." - Roberto Calasso, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony
In his dialogue between Croesus and Solon, Herodotus sets up the first verbal duel between Asia and Europe. (...) Croesus is eager for Solon to recognize him as not only the most powerful but also the happiest of men. Solon responds by citing, as an example of a happy man, an unknown Athenian who died, old, in battle. Solon doesn't mean to contrast the common man with the king. That would be banal. He is explaining the Greek paradox as far as happiness is concerned: that one arrives at it only in death. Happiness is an element of life which, before it can come into being, demands that life disappear. If happiness is a quality that sums up the whole man, then it must wait until a man's life is complete in death." - Roberto Calasso, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony
"The cosmos pulses back and forth between snake and bull. An enormously long time would pass before the snake, Time-Without-Age, was followed by the drumming of the bull, who was Zeus. Then a much shorter time before the bull Zeus coupled with Demeter to generate a woman in whom the nature of the snake pulsed once again, Persephone. And hardly any time at all, the time it takes for desire to flare, before Zeus, realizing that the baby Persephone had become a girl, transformed himself into a snake, coupled with his daughter, and generated Zagreus, the bull, the first Dionysus. The story of the world was all contained in this becoming a bull, then a snake once again, to generate another bull. Told by Zeus, it was a story that began with a bull and ended with a bull. Told by Time-Without-Age, it was a story that began with a snake and waited to coil itself up in a snake once more. Time-Without-Age has been waiting ever since for:
". . . bull
father of snake and father of snake bull,
in the mountain the hidden one, oh herdsman, the goad."
[...]
The sea is the continuum, the perfection of the undifferentiated. Its emissary on earth is the snake. Where the snake is, there gushes water. Its eye is liquid. Beneath its coils flows the water of the underworld. Forever. Being sinuous, it has no need of joints. The same pattern covers its whole skin; its scales are uniform, its motion undulating and constantly self-renewing, like waves. The snake is to the bull as the sea to the land. The earth emerges from the sea, as the bull from the snake. To carry off Europa, the bull Zeus emerged from the sea and then plunged back into it again. Fending off the waves, Europa had one foot immersed in the sea, one hand gripping the animal's back.
[...]
Two sovereign lines descend from Zeus : that of Dionysus and that of Apollo. Dionysus's line is more obscure than Apollo's; only rarely does it emerge from the shadow. Since he is both snake and bull, all history before Zeus is recalled in him and begins again with him. Apollo's line is the more visible, yet even more secret than Dionysus's when it comes to Apollo's transgression against his father. Apollo is neither snake nor bull, but he who kills snake and bull, either loosing off the arrows himself, as with Python at Delphi, or sending his emissary, Theseus, to bury his sword in the Minotaur in Crete or capture the bull in Marathon. Dionysus and Apollo: one is the weapon, the other uses the weapon. Ever since they appeared, Psyche has been running back and forth into the arms of first one, then the other." - Roberto Calasso, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony
". . . bull
father of snake and father of snake bull,
in the mountain the hidden one, oh herdsman, the goad."
[...]
The sea is the continuum, the perfection of the undifferentiated. Its emissary on earth is the snake. Where the snake is, there gushes water. Its eye is liquid. Beneath its coils flows the water of the underworld. Forever. Being sinuous, it has no need of joints. The same pattern covers its whole skin; its scales are uniform, its motion undulating and constantly self-renewing, like waves. The snake is to the bull as the sea to the land. The earth emerges from the sea, as the bull from the snake. To carry off Europa, the bull Zeus emerged from the sea and then plunged back into it again. Fending off the waves, Europa had one foot immersed in the sea, one hand gripping the animal's back.
[...]
Two sovereign lines descend from Zeus : that of Dionysus and that of Apollo. Dionysus's line is more obscure than Apollo's; only rarely does it emerge from the shadow. Since he is both snake and bull, all history before Zeus is recalled in him and begins again with him. Apollo's line is the more visible, yet even more secret than Dionysus's when it comes to Apollo's transgression against his father. Apollo is neither snake nor bull, but he who kills snake and bull, either loosing off the arrows himself, as with Python at Delphi, or sending his emissary, Theseus, to bury his sword in the Minotaur in Crete or capture the bull in Marathon. Dionysus and Apollo: one is the weapon, the other uses the weapon. Ever since they appeared, Psyche has been running back and forth into the arms of first one, then the other." - Roberto Calasso, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony
"Sparta understood, with a clarity that set it apart from every other society of the ancient world, that the real enemy was the excess that is part of life. Lycurgus's two ominous rules that forestall and frustrate any possible law merely dictate that no laws be written down and no luxury permitted. It is perhaps the most glaring demonstration of laconism the Spartans offer, always assuming we leave aside the grim moral precepts tradition has handed down to us. One can almost smell the malignant breath of the oracle in those dictates: forbidding writing and luxury was in itself enough to do away with everything that escaped the state's control.
(...)
"Just as Plato says that god rejoiced that the universe was born and had begun to move, so Lycurgus, pleased and contented with the beauty and loftiness of his now complete and already implemented legislation, wanted to make it immortal and immutable for the future, or at least so far as human foresight was capable." The divine craftsman of Plato's Timaeus composed the world and brought it into harmony; Lycurgus was the first to compose a world that excluded the world: Spartan society. He was the first person to conduct experiments on the body social, the true forefather all modern rulers, even if they don't have the impact of a Lenin or a Hitler, try to imitate.
The Athenians knew there was a surplus of beauty in relation to power in their city. They could already see the ruins of Athens, whereas, to Thucydides' eyes, "if the Spartans were to abandon their city, so that only the foundations of the buildings survived, with the passing of time posterity simply would not believe the town had ever been so powerful as it was said to be." - Roberto Calasso, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony
(...)
"Just as Plato says that god rejoiced that the universe was born and had begun to move, so Lycurgus, pleased and contented with the beauty and loftiness of his now complete and already implemented legislation, wanted to make it immortal and immutable for the future, or at least so far as human foresight was capable." The divine craftsman of Plato's Timaeus composed the world and brought it into harmony; Lycurgus was the first to compose a world that excluded the world: Spartan society. He was the first person to conduct experiments on the body social, the true forefather all modern rulers, even if they don't have the impact of a Lenin or a Hitler, try to imitate.
The Athenians knew there was a surplus of beauty in relation to power in their city. They could already see the ruins of Athens, whereas, to Thucydides' eyes, "if the Spartans were to abandon their city, so that only the foundations of the buildings survived, with the passing of time posterity simply would not believe the town had ever been so powerful as it was said to be." - Roberto Calasso, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony
"Athens never achieved the full horror of Sparta, but then it was never far behind. The city had barely discovered liberty, that experience no one in Persia or Egypt had ever dreamed of, before it was also discovering new methods of persecution, methods more subtle than those practiced by the great kings and the pharaohs. An army of informers invaded city square and market. They were no longer the secret agents of a police force but a freely formed collective of citizens intent on the public good. Thus in the very same instant that it discovered the excellence of the individual, Athens also developed a fierce resentment against that excellence. None of the great men of the fifth century B . C . was able to live in Athens without the constant fear of being expelled from the city and condemned to death.
(...)
Athens left posterity not only the Propylaea, but political chatter too. The anecdote passed on to us by Plutarch is exemplary: an illiterate man went up to Aristides, who he had never seen before, and asked him to write the name Aristides on a potsherd. So he could vote for his ostracism. Aristides asked him: "What harm has Aristides done you?" The illiterate man answered: "None. And I don't know him, but it bothers me hearing everybody call him Aristides the Just." Without more ado, Aristides wrote his own name on the potsherd." - Roberto Calasso, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony
(...)
Athens left posterity not only the Propylaea, but political chatter too. The anecdote passed on to us by Plutarch is exemplary: an illiterate man went up to Aristides, who he had never seen before, and asked him to write the name Aristides on a potsherd. So he could vote for his ostracism. Aristides asked him: "What harm has Aristides done you?" The illiterate man answered: "None. And I don't know him, but it bothers me hearing everybody call him Aristides the Just." Without more ado, Aristides wrote his own name on the potsherd." - Roberto Calasso, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony
"When the Christians built churches on the sites of pagan sanctuaries, incorporating the old capitals and columns in their naves, they were behaving as Heracles had with the Nemean lion, or Athena with Gorgon . In the hero's relationship with the monster, what matters is this: that the monster possesses, or protects, or even is the treasure. To kill the monster means to incorporate it in oneself, to take its place. The hero becomes the new monster, clothed in the skin of the old and decorated with some metonymic trophy. Thus Heracles will no longer show his face, except through the motionless jaws of the lion he has killed." - Roberto Calasso, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony