| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: people say he is my father; he is Neptune's head man and knows
every inch of ground all over the bottom of the sea. If you can
snare him and hold him tight, he will tell you about your
voyage, what courses you are to take, and how you are to sail
the sea so as to reach your home. He will also tell you, if you
so will, all that has been going on at your house both good and
bad, while you have been away on your long and dangerous
journey.'
"'Can you show me,' said I, 'some stratagem by means of which I
may catch this old god without his suspecting it and finding me
out? For a god is not easily caught--not by a mortal man.'
The Odyssey |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Economist by Xenophon: such height of nobleness (he added), Socrats, does husbandry appear,
like some fair mistress, to conform the soul and disposition of those
concerned with it.
[8] "Nay, if you will but listen, Socrates, with husbandry it is not
the same as with the other arts."
[9] {katatribenai}, "worn out." See "Mem." III. iv. 1; IV. vii. 5. Al.
"bored to death."
[10] Or, "before the products of his pupilage are worth his keep."
[11] Or, "critical and crucial."
The proem[12] to the speech is beautiful at any rate (I answered), but
hardly calculated to divert the hearer from the previous question. A
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from On Horsemanship by Xenophon: [10] Or, "spread so as to form a surface."
But if care is needed to make the hoofs hard, similar pains should be
taken to make the mouth and jaws soft; and the same means and
appliances which will render a man's flesh and skin soft, will serve
to soften and supple a horse's mouth.[11]
[11] Or, "may be used with like effect on a horse's mouth," i.e.
bathing, friction, oil. See Pollux, i. 201.
V
It is the duty of a horseman, as we think, to have his groom trained
thoroughly in all that concerns the treatment of the horse. In the
first place, then, the groom should know that he is never to knot the
On Horsemanship |
