| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ion by Plato: by the passage of Xenophon's Memorabilia in which the rhapsodists are
described by Euthydemus as 'very precise about the exact words of Homer,
but very idiotic themselves.' (Compare Aristotle, Met.)
Ion the rhapsode has just come to Athens; he has been exhibiting in
Epidaurus at the festival of Asclepius, and is intending to exhibit at the
festival of the Panathenaea. Socrates admires and envies the rhapsode's
art; for he is always well dressed and in good company--in the company of
good poets and of Homer, who is the prince of them. In the course of
conversation the admission is elicited from Ion that his skill is
restricted to Homer, and that he knows nothing of inferior poets, such as
Hesiod and Archilochus;--he brightens up and is wide awake when Homer is
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum: So the Woodman went at once to the trees and began to work;
and he soon made a truck out of the limbs of trees, from which he
chopped away all the leaves and branches. He fastened it together
with wooden pegs and made the four wheels out of short pieces of a
big tree trunk. So fast and so well did he work that by the time
the mice began to arrive the truck was all ready for them.
They came from all directions, and there were thousands of
them: big mice and little mice and middle-sized mice; and each
one brought a piece of string in his mouth. It was about this
time that Dorothy woke from her long sleep and opened her eyes.
She was greatly astonished to find herself lying upon the grass,
The Wizard of Oz |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Reign of King Edward the Third by William Shakespeare: We will intrench our selves on every side,
That neither vituals nor supply of men
May come to succour this accursed town:
Famine shall combat where our swords are stopped.
[Enter six poor Frenchmen.]
DERBY.
The promised aid, that made them stand aloof,
Is now retired and gone an other way:
It will repent them of their stubborn will.
But what are these poor ragged slaves, my Lord?
KING EDWARD.
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