The Bull from the Sea

It is better to learn war early from friends, than late from enemies

It is the mark of little men to like only what they know; one step beyond, and they feel the black cold of chaos.

Often I wished for someone to share my mind with; but their hearts were in little things, they would have thought me a dreamer, and I had to plan alone.

She stood laughing in the water. Her laughter made my backbone ripple. It had neither shame nor shamelessness; she laughed alone, please with her victory over strange monstrous things.

I could not tell what I should fill even this one day with; and there were years ahead. She

It was his nature to believe anything, before he would believe he could be wrong.

That,” I said, “is the business of the gods, who made us.” “Yes, but for what? We ought to be good for it, whatever it is. How can we live, until we know?” I gazed at him; such desperate words, yet he looked all lit from within. He saw I was paying attention; that was enough to draw him on.

Apollo, who understands all mysteries, says also, “Nothing too much.” He is knowledge, Theseus; but She is what he knows.

They showed me myself, as I must look to Attic eyes: a bull-dancer of Crete, smooth-shaven, fined down to a whiplash by the training; my waist in a gilded cinch-belt, my silk kilt stitched with peacock eyes, my lids still smudged with kohl; nothing Hellene about me, but my flaxen hair. My necklace and arm-rings were not grave jewels of a kingly house, but the costly gauds of the Bull Court, the gift of sport-loving lords and man-loving ladies to a bull-boy who will go in with the music and fly up with the horns.

Don’t we say all helpless folk—the orphan, the stranger, the suppliant, who have nothing to bargain with and can only pray—are sacred to Zeus the Savior? The King must answer for them; he is next the god. For the serfs, the landless hirelings, the captives of the spear; even the slaves.

where there is war there’s spoil. From this it was not far to roving on adventure. Young men could set themselves up in life; kings could grow rich without hard taxes, which pleased their people;